Close Encounters of the 4th Kind

 

Close Encounters of the 4th Kind

 

She cut you off at the aisle’s

entrance with her silk-sheet smile,

satin-stockinged longing boxed in place

by cloister walls, a safe cage -

scans your face and you blush

feel words tumble, rushing

like undammed waters, your plush

tongue pushing against the roof,

stuck between bare teeth,

tasting sugar-salts without tasting,

pursuing defection, hunting relief.

Some liberated small talk forms knots

to disguise a bigger clotting

of ideas just beneath veneers:

‘Where’s Paulo?’ ’At home.’

And you think that’s good, so does she,

not here, not now -

but it’s coming, and when it comes,

violins will smoulder of fused enclosures

that bleed inside each other.

At midnight, perhaps you’re awake,

some distant noise – it shakes

but you’re enfolded by black night

and see another, something older - begrimed

that thumb-pricks and cannot help remind

you of feelings felt these many times.

She bares her breasts, it stirs,

upon her lips – and yours – form words

you both needed to say

before she takes herself away

again. ‘Is that you?’ ’No, me first, is it you?’

Both wondering why it has been so long,

what it is that is wrong

and all those small neglected affections

form strong once more

just before she finds the door –

you agree to meet as you agreed before.

 

If there’s a surface, 

you’ll struggle to reach it,

pulling puff-lunged breaststrokes that bring you

muddling from this one side

to another against flooding tides,

beach then wooly finger labyrinthine aisles.

And when you blink, you’ll find

you were not really close at all –

just caught yourself pushing at the 4^th wall.