A Love Poem

My heart has started missing beats

I think the Thing is taking them

from where it mouths the muscle 

with its rigid, teething metal jaws.

It’s siphoning, a fish-tank pump

its gears are greased by arteries

its rotors rust in bloody shades.

I’m not anaemic any more.

It started like a tic – so small

an iron filing in the vein

it clogged, engorged, and built itself.

It’s only natural something tore. 

Its wires are like capillaries

its thin, unfurling copper roots

their conquest of my inner self

is hardly ever even sore.

People are asking questions, now

since it has bitten through the bone

my ribs are like the ribs of birds

I feel the Thing in every 

pore.

Sometimes I trace the clockwork 

lump

and briefly think I’ll tell someone

it carves its cogs through cartilage 

I spasm fondly on 

my floor

and so, you see, it’s mine to 

keep 

no one can know that 

we’re betrothed 

my heart has started 

missing 

beats

I’ve never felt 

like this 

be

fore