Three Poems

Woke up with an empty you-shaped feeling

Woke up with an empty you-shaped feeling
smacking in my chest and wanting home -
nothing to do with lust - you just were kneeling
at the altar in my cloistered heart
and I wanted to close my arms -

the sky in all its different colours
the stars with all their different arms
cannot bring the sunset in more passion
than the man who's stretched out on your want
crying for one brush of your whispering mouth.


Times Change with the Boiling Water

When first her father died
I put a pot to the fire
in my bare chest and went back to bed
till it boiled and spat and she touched
the bare red spot, and said: 'You must, love, be careful.'
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