Born in vulcanite

you wore your mourning about your strangled neck

a stray velvet ribbon, you couldn’t afford good silver

it was always; the unchipped china, starched Sunday best

une nuance de bleu, un tantinet décevant

you placed your Whitby against hush of satin

no French Jet here, we only pretend to own our furniture

we keep borrowed wedding dresses for the day

then set aflame with every stitch rented out

and staring with those liquid eyes, hold the room still

as you explain, carefully, with your good scoured diction

why lies led to riotous ivy, creeping destruction, how

autumnale roses don’t need over watering

an ominous pollination hid amongst time

I walked to the church; doves with stripes of grey

against white feathers, bowed their small heads as I should

when you turned toward the forest and I kept on crooked

paths leading deeper, where purple headed hemlock beckoned

eternal rest, folded in roadside crocus’ verged glut

with dying narcissus, no longer the sun-bidden yoke of windmill

both of us crying wet and noisy, against hungry gust of

sudden storm; shoreline receding past what was visible

a blistering rain, hoodwinking things felt and what is expected

The howl of losing you, follows like belladona

illuminates poison in glass dropper; we squeezed ourselves

into shapes of suffering and back as antelope bones

whilst sight fades; deadly nightshade stealing our

very words from ribboned concave, sleeping chests

the purse of your unopened letter, breathing ink

what would you have said, if you had?

A heckle? Indifference? Salted prime cut

or something bitter and sharp, like the prick from

aubergine foxglove, her digitalis purpurea, spell

required to slip, easy and lost, when dream allowed

the sanctuary of your embrace before

you appeal for your release

champs sont à l’ombre des miteuse arbres

thorned arrows piercing

mutual delusion.