Limpets
You stake out a space
in the sun
at the edge of my desk,
a gift from someone
you never met –
or did you, somewhere
inhuman, quieter than breath?
I catch your eyes
and am sorry, not in the sense
of taking responsibility,
but sharing it
from an unsafe distance,
fleecing the sand
with the heart,
not the gait of complicity.
My steps skate numb
around the wetness
which drugged you too
once, until a hand
stroked salt from crinkle-cut
corners, weighing
and reckoning you like never before.
I could keep this
up for weeks, or dispense
with ‘'you' and ‘'I', ever since
the past’s alluvium
imperceptibly shifted our present,
the periphery which we
centred on becoming
the centre around which we orbit,
caps crooked,
polite as strangers.
We almost prefer each other
this way, under my desk,
crouched for when the fixtures
decide to stop shuddering;
braced against whoever
could love us
in the unattended light.
You stake out a space
in the sun
at the edge of my desk,
a gift from someone
you never met –
or did you, somewhere
inhuman, quieter than breath?
I catch your eyes
and am sorry, not in the sense
of taking responsibility,
but sharing it
from an unsafe distance,
fleecing the sand
with the heart,
not the gait of complicity.
My steps skate numb
around the wetness
which drugged you too
once, until a hand
stroked salt from crinkle-cut
corners, weighing
and reckoning you like never before.
I could keep this
up for weeks, or dispense
with ‘'you' and ‘'I', ever since
the past’s alluvium
imperceptibly shifted our present,
the periphery which we
centred on becoming
the centre around which we orbit,
caps crooked,
polite as strangers.
We almost prefer each other
this way, under my desk,
crouched for when the fixtures
decide to stop shuddering;
braced against whoever
could love us
in the unattended light.