Some Time Before Dinner

You cry. My head a ringing place.
Your face a freeze-frame of outraged red.
We walk and waltz and you hiccough with tears.

My body is a besieged land,
defences breached and the headquarters
inhabited by music.

In my head I am riding to Juneau.
In my head a strong man, arms like fortress walls,
holding me hard against his solid ribs.

My waltzing does not amuse you.
My tuneless singing I cannot hear.
I don’t know the words, the drums are a heartbeat.

Your hot hands cling still.
Your hands entrenched, scaling the walls.
You may conquer me yet, but my mind is lost.

Seven, Until Eight

We slip upstairs, into the half-light dark,

leaving the tadpoles playing in their pool.

Time to be together, to shade the lights.

My patience is a skeleton leaf, each vein

frayed. I pray for peace. The Middle East

has nothing on you. And I lie while

you walk the floor, and drink, and milk

hangs at the corners of your lips. Outside

the sky is aflame. The neighbours fight quietly.

Inside nothing but your feet on the floor,

your experiments with sounds,

your mouth a new toy. Outside the

deepening dusk as day gives way

to shadowed hills. You cannot fight.

You fall like an old soldier,

surrendered to the hours, at last.