Four Movements in the Scale of Two

1. Pages

Cut to us, an overhead shot, early morning,
Lying in bed, foetus curled,
back to naked back.

Opposing bass clefs,
the elegant scars on the hips of a cello,
a butterfly's white wings, resting.

The double heart of a secret fruit,
an 'X' in the equation.
An open book

with blank pages
and nothing on them but sleep,
the reading of our dreams and this.

II. Still Life
I sit, eyes closed, my naked back
a canvas on which you paint,

drawing upon a palette of touches,
light across the skin,

shading between my shoulder blades
with the brushstrokes of your hair,

adding depth, with the impression of your breasts
against the sentence of my spine

and texture with your tongue
cracking close in my ear,

making me realise once more that bodies, like souls
only exist when touched.

III - Eastern Promise
Beneath the dark tent of her down-falling hair.
Speak he said - and she did.

Drawing the language from deep,
summoning the Steppe and Siberian snow to their bed

until the words caught her
and she cracked their consonants over her tongue

before dropping them to him,
like the shock of new ice in old water.

IV Line-Break
What breaks when this happens?

Insignificant, but enough
to leave a caesura
and us, puzzling over what gave

as suddenly and obscured as a glass
dull-snapping in the hand
beneath the washing water.

that gives no sign it has done so
until the slow smoke-signal of blood,
uncurling from below.