morning barney
next door
muffled eff-yous
fuzz through the walls
in the mirror
my eyes awash
with scrawny red streams
my head like a sack
of gravel

that night
we talk about London
I think of the hug I will give
the clumsiness
coursing through me
like treacle
my lungs congested
with strange capital air

the subject changes
your girlfriend
guts a packet
of salt and vinegar
and we laugh
between sips of my Coke
and your drink
a sickly yellow

I let the conversation
drizzle over me
in a shower of syllables
I know my words
are jumbled
splattered slipshod
as a toddler’s painting
but I toss them in
see if they gleam

Eleven thousand
            three hundred
     sixty one miles away
in a place   I’ve never been,
     you are thinking
          of all the places
you have never   been
     or haven’t   been,
some for seasons,
          some for years.

A Paris   pomegranate   sunrise
     from the Pont des Arts,
     bright     colours     shimmying
at the   pulse   of romance.

The   blood   cell   rush   of Shibuya,
   Tokyo at night among
a river of     strange symbols,
   blinking   TV   screens.
  
Prague dredged in frost,
   feet-chatter   on cobbles
          past the Jan Hus memorial
under a   cool   periwinkle sky.

Glossy tulips in Bilbao,
   metallic curves,
   trill   of   syllables
     by the teal Nervión.

I think of you,          far away,
   same planet, different   spot,
the future washing towards us
   full of scrambled   images
and     white     noise,
a trickle of hope at your   toes,
   through my screen.

the sun signifies
a deep bloom of affection
radiant in the heart

a kiss miles in the making
geography of your love
an extra horizon away

eager heartbeats
the ache of a touch
electrifies every nerve

warmth of a lemon embrace
light swims in
now watch how you glow

and again
that cool delectable taste
of a moment

assembly line
of conversation
rolling out

all manner
of topics
with a candle on top

each one
tumbling as a domino
under the table

subtle twinge
of single life
pushed aside

to volcanic laughter
and the put to sleep
of another year

but we sip the syntax
let every vowel
soothe our blood