Julia

Julia

Today I will take your bitten hand and, I think,

probe grey eyes, once flavoured ocean blue,

saccharine scented with lost love’s cloves,

hold your oven-gloved fingers, lying loosely,

limp in my palm, huddled black upon a stage

set with a vile biting day of cast-iron hearts.

Today was always your intention, mine too,

planned for, rehearsed over so many years,

learned lines under spreading chestnut tree

where I drink the gin that you sold me.

That scar you hide crosses your forehead,

prays on your temple, it speaks lost litanies

through silent lips pressed into tight lines,

so white and thin, all red is now banished.

Today a little thicker about the hips, the few

small words you speak betray the words

you lack; clichés like you never can go back,

look forwards, live only for this moment,

forget we read books of dangerous things

together, for it clips your wings, fly free.

Hollow chestnut trees make hollow libraries,

and I see this stencilled scar lives on you.

We could even do that, if we wanted too,

right here and now. You stopped looking

so long ago, stripped yourself of every idea

we dressed ourselves in, every vested vow

like Angel dust vanished into drifting mist

with every ragged line you had ever kissed.

Never was there such a perfect conversion

from this to this. Rebel from the waist down.

Mutter that sometimes once I loved you,

saw we didn’t belong; all that making love

uses energy and sustaining love uses more.

Better by far we march up and down

with whistles, bang gongs, right wrongs,

cheer, wave white flags; they hate all that,

so resettle your spectacles upon your nose.

Today threatens terror so great, you swear

do it to him, someone else. Deny real woman

in a real woman’s frock, stockings, high heels

plunging red bra, valley tight on the bust.

But your scar will speak what it knows:

I will take your bitten hand, limp in mine,

for we could even do that, if we still wished,

recast old spells, smelted in gold this time,

wake memories, what we did was no crime.

Still years to sail against the wind, run swift,

heal imprinted scars with old lovers’ gifts.