incident

The boy with the eagle under his jumper
tells me it is sleeping, not dead.

'Roosting.' I reply,
adjusting the stars

to within a tolerance
of a thousandth of an inch.


preface

Gentle reader, I will address you
as if we were the firmest of friends,

as if we had shared the starless nights
when the ocean locked us under glass.

But you are vapour, slipping through my fingers,
and I am nothing but a breath of wind.

Conversation will get us nowhere.
Take my hand. We will go there now.
...