It Will Come and It Will Go

 

It Will Come and It Will Go

 

4.30 am. Blinking in a half light

cast by external globes on walls

outside, hooked into concrete,

probing through translucent drapes

that only manage half a job.

Fish beneath the sheets, give up,

toss the pillows aside -

‘The fateful day is come,’ you’d cry

if you were given to hysteria

or were a dramatic sort of cove –

well, could be, you suppose

as you pad, pale naked, across tiles,

pulling on shorts, T Shirt clammy

for the day before. It smells of piss.

Too early for gym, poke at idle work,

keeping lights dim - they could seep,

creep like snakes under the door,

wake her from her flowery sleep.

Still, not long before she appears

tousle topped: ‘How’s your sleep, dear?’

You both put plus 45 minutes in,

exit sweating from the gym,

strip each other off in the kitchen

toss the rags and shags inside

the open-mouthed machine -

empty-bellied it will chew on the cud.

She likes your shorts, she should,

she picked them, after all –

having audited all your clothes

when you weren’t alert

and declared a deficits– shirts,

too, and when you ask her why

she smiles – perhaps more wise

than ever you will be.

You sit in the car, silently,

she drives quiet dawn streets,

you’re tired, think pillows, sheets,

4.30am and the hours spent tossing

thinking lots, but saying nothing,

until, she breaks down the walls -

‘I know you, from bottom to top,

your head is full of work.’

She’s right, of course,

it’s in there, like high hurdles,

breasts and bellies trapped in girdles,

dammed blood throttling brick veins,

and nothing much you can explain.

More May Pang than Yoko,

so she calls out, softly, because she knows:

“It will come and it will go.’