1.
He throws his hands
Up like as if
Painting a self portrait
For her to judge.
She blows him bubbles
From lips that have hugged
Many forks full of
Cheesy spaghetti
Flattered with pepper.
The talk is of
Chatter the chat
Is of less but
The eyes watch
It all wise in
Quiet waiting
For later to
Be laid bare.
The legs relax with
The wine the young knees
Find a nice place
To play while the feet
Discover the other
Side and pretend each
Touch is accidental.
Above the table
The first valve
Of chilli splits,
Veins feel heat
Burst bubbles
Paint curdled –
Two gives up and
Fizzes as one-
They leave,
She forgets
To pay the
Umbrella
But he pulls
Out his fingers
And they depart
Bound in hand.
2.
Apart, the light
Was glorious.
Beach-ball-bats glistened.
Together, it was
Different.
The bench was their
Stage and all the rest
Scenery.
3
She was there in the night
She was with him in the day
Through thought’s dry vapour
She shone bright dew while
Wet in the rain she waited
At the traffic lights
Filling time with him.
4
He was the deep and
Gentle rise and fall,
What’s that he said? That
Thudding like the ebb in
Warm deep water,
Refuge for the frenzied waves.
She was a tree-like place
Of rest and love, the
Deep shade to shelter in
and heal blisters with
her leaf-balm touch.
But it twisted into something
Rough and cut in squares,
Something he had seen in
Other people’s wives and
She had felt as her roots rotted
In the dark, something neither he
Or she could see but both
Knew was there, the fruit had soured
In the heat .
Part 5
Later, recovering,
She thanked him for holding her and
Kissing her hair’s grease,
Finding the eyes she’d dropped ,
Washing them Clean
With Salt love,
The best kind:
Rock
Part 6
She found herself
Asking him
How his day
Went.
He liked how she
Bathed his stories
In warm water
Before bedtime.
She liked his way
Of being the
Full stop to end
A long day.
Together their
Effort made a kind
Of prose, as yet
Without a plot.
Being Every Day 