FRACTURES

Returning from the Day of the Dead

So here you are, landed,

brimful of holiday.

Yet buried still – dead weight

among the souvenirs –

lurks a primal fear, hand-painted,

of one day being left alone.

It is a drag anchor,

has held you back too long.

Be well, I say. Be well.

Albeit fierce in its embrace

let anguish slip away.

Life’s a descent on scree, mostly.

Planting both feet sideways,

one hand clutches at stony ground

the other skyward flails

reaching for direction.

The headlong balance of braking

and velocity.

Only know

those empty places, with you in them,

shall always bloom.

Be well. Be well. Be well.

xi. 2025

Heart-to-heart

Beneath this chandelier ceiling, supine

I am cuffed. A universal donor

held by the takeaway message of blood:

that colour is history, not difference.

In a suspension of ten dreamt minutes

you appear, glinting darkly through the glass,

fingers formed like Sally Bowles goodbye wave

on a platform unlocated. Unfound

that picture of windswept hair, your blurred dress

slipping from the camber of a shoulder.

Listen. Between the closure of gristly doors

and - full force - their opening, pressure pulses

floods my heart. Its no-light chambers swelling,

even the pouch where clotted hurt clings on.

Yet all our absorbed past is cleansed before

the needle is withdrawn. Not one beat skipped.

xi. 2025

This spider is not having nightmares about censorship. With eight eyes I have seen THEM jump from unmarked cars. Felt the Magnum bootsteps cross our threshold. Heard their balaclava breath. They come for you, not me.

In the recess of a window, I lie low. Scuttle down those cracks you never see, stalk the dusty under-cupboard. There, with the cache of books you knowingly hid, I need no light. Rest invisible with your companions:

Atwood, Morrison, Kobabe, Orwell, Hosseini, Spiegelman, Vonnegut, Joyce. And three more years. I count them: all that time to read. Ignore distractions. Focus only on that single strand – untugged. Until it is.