Amongst Russian Lathes and Metal Curls

He's a blur of electrics, emery cloth and wires, breeze block dust, implements, logarithms

He strides for two men through this city, power walker, cutting up cars, coughing clouds

He is industry

We have cut thumbs and pushed to, me and him, in a black room with a carpet knife; listening for blood, its roll down my knee, its splash on his steel toe-tip

He measures me with micrometer eye

I have slept dead in his arms, watching the moon watch me through the net curtains, thinking, "He could cast me up there."

I dream to dance on the factory floor to his lead piano, amongst Russian lathes and metal curls