I remember it, you
not so much. No. 10 staples,
unused, I’ve brought them.
The store is still there. You said,
regularly, you didn’t want
to sell stationery your whole life.
Pencils end up lost, pens run out,
like a lot of things. The inevitability
of it smacks you like a migraine, I got it.

Soon we became stapled, painlessly,
together. The mossy green jumper,
mine, you wore it. Your knitted-by-grandmother
scarf, sunflowers, I wore
sometimes. Routines we made
ourselves, the right shade of tea,
word puzzles before bed.
All falling into place, a quiet click,
seamless.

Then, restless. Fidgety. A classic
different directions situation. Thankfully,
amicable. Just as seamlessly, clicked
apart. Now here, the staples, leftover
silvered remnants. Still boxed. Use them?
I could, but couldn’t. What was reduced
to stationery. Runs out like a lot of things.
Inevitable, I guess, I got it.

You only left the office
thirty minutes ago,
the tube’s atrocious at the best
of times, the worst of times
nightmarish, you say, I have already
bought us drinks and aren’t
the prices going up all the time now,
yeah, but it’s a rarity this, I don’t even
drink that much, Christmas,
barely touched a drop, talking of which
did you have a nice one? Yeah,
not bad, I say, back in the country
with the family, socks
and Boxing Day board games,
that period between the 25th
and New Year’s so odd isn’t it,
I nod yes, ask if you made resolutions,
you nod yes, sip drink, yes, might
do a half marathon if I can rope him
into it, oh that’s nice, three years
you’ve been with him now? Almost four,
a miracle, really, but I do love him,
I’ll bring him next time, he’d be here now
but he plays squash on Thursdays,
ah never mind, there’s always next time,
next time! You say, wine-in-mouth,
we must do this more often, sure,
I reply, knowing this,
knowing nothing.

I.

snowdrop flourishes
frost-baptised in dawn’s first light
rows of white applause

-----

II.

gathered family
state of gratitude and warmth
lights twinkling on tree

-----

III.

transient language
Boxing Day trodden whispers
in sky’s yuletide gift

you bring the crimson
makes a system skittish
foreign electricity
in staccato arrivals

X marks the spot
seems fact over fiction
but your code unravelable
gridlock enigma

the heartbeat knows
mystery loves mischief
though years become strangers
rainless scraps of cloud

no better should know better
adulthood in lowercase
when we meet French lullabies
may I drink from your throat

Crayon pink cheeks
shimmer, blossoming
commotion of the skies,

like dream bundles
leaking in from beyond
wrapped in emerald silk,

atmosphere's blush,
Christmas come early
with electrical waltz.

at the edge of any town
evening leaks out over green tufts
trio of circular-headed
pumps with no cars to quench

grass like a smudge of butter
nudges the curbs
lights threading shadows
where a man

back to the road
waits for another vehicle
to pull up by
the unswinging Mobil

red Pegasus to signal
here is where you fill

they said you couldn't miss it
how it sprouts volatile
blood-built demon flora

or chain smoker’s inflamed lung
messy web of charred arteries
drips singe ground to orange

skinny hooks like sky fissures
a seeping wound that sullies
evening’s cobalt gauze

and no, you didn’t miss it
leaves well gone on winter's
vampiric apparition