Skimming and scanning
the grammar of the riverbank’s
brown leaf, new shoot syntax
a bold type wren,
like the old bouncing ball of singalongs,
led my eye to read the waterline
and yet I still couldn’t discern
if smiles or tears were written
while the branch tips still scribed

Look at us perched again,
anxious dreams set in long gone buildings
where the kids won’t do a thing we ask
and for some reason we’re naked
(except for a mask)

And as my old man says,
the conveyor belt hasn’t so much as slowed
so our wish for a cautious toe to get set
will be whipped from starter to panicked plenary
before we hear the gun crack

Know this, comrades:
the holes in our practice we think show clear
are lost to the fizz and bubble of our charges.
When Monday comes they’ll listen (mostly)
as we carry on regardless.

When the tiredness came
sad eyes regarded it as nothing new
in hindsight she’d always made space for it,
an unconscious pet bed

the lack of shock
as it crept to her was almost nice
fingers on imagined fur
she felt her edges numb
retract from the screech of daily headlines
and dumb fingered scrolling
that sparked electrocutions

pacing in slow circles
around the blue pulse of her core
it settled unrequested
and pretended a defence
while forever she reached for rest

On the news
the language on the vehicles changed
from the ignored alphabets
to those we sort of got:
to ambulanza
then l’ambulance
to ambulance
to ambiwlans
to carbad-eiridinn
to otharcharr
to ours

We were once well acquainted
with the wee small hours
adept at navigating neon jungles
and the deeps of kitchen philosophies
entwined with kebabs and illicit frissons,  
in vino veritas conspiracies
that took weeks to unpick and apologise for
but passed

Now, if seen, those hours hold different snags,
surrounding plants are far less exotic
but familiar brambles cut deep,
immutable truths roar
when the ***** doesn’t do the talking
and morning burrs not so easily dislodged
by a full English and a million teas

Your sick incarceration
held against a shining will
‘til unmoored you walked

a light you couldn’t see,
that lifted others,
dimmed

each step seeming free
with inexorable gravity
drew to the woods

your last embrace
brought cold release
and all our griefs became

A great deal of weakness
goes into the man I am now
indecision and a flurry of doubts
that make ways cloudy

But it’s fertile ground below,
this lack of surety
this endeavour to truly know

and if more would live here
how much better we would be