Second drafts, used pens that bludgeon sea-sick overcast,
easier than peeling off that glimmering super glue on your hands
A chain-saw cow swirls around in black drink, staining
requests for things that allow you to think,
bleeding blooms lavender-skinned around the sacrificial lamb
Two pairs of jeans, Kline-style on the carpet leaves,
you want a horse, I want a sheep, still the lake-bench
grows opal eyes like ants
I make breakfast, eggs,
you show me a meerkat on your phone
I reach for the pen that breathes ink down my bones
sit asleep like a bleached brush cleaning your hands
Veterans rise, medicine is mixed
Advisory calls lost in the cariad twist
Blotted, soaked and skinned, I drop
breadcrumbs like Gretel to lose
sight of where I stand,
cracked and brittle, falling into fractals
across the forest floor
and back onto the mahogany mattress again.
Written in response to prompt, “Valentine”.
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