Treading Water In Darned Socks

I :

When
(in windows after work)

we plundered seconds from the sun
and fed them to the hollow grass below,

(the people in the street
turned
to each other and in brief wandering glimpses
of each others' minds, made comment)

the cushions that rested below our recumbent bodies
traded protest in soprano


but was similar to the rattling of the tube
as it courts final destination.

And (sleepily, slowly swaying)
our faces made contact between pages of hazy prose and
the world turned over in unconscious ignorance

.





II :

I must have heard the door stutter to a close
half a dozen times before nine.

Floors worn to paper-dust grasped hours with momentum;
enclosed my arid addled feet,
wrapped in disbelieving


(that the door would slam again

with your return)


cellophane. Light, tempered and brimming
in hues of watery hope,
should reflect the shadow of an open hole

back beyond the room we were both supposed
to belong to.




III :

Officially ended,

but the motes were left hanging
out to dry in the sun,
quivering from the force of an exit


(you covered over in shades of green
to camouflage yourself from feelings)


and nowhere in this place
am I less likely to find your old and tattered
shoes, soles half peeled where you forgot to glue them down,



than behind the stairs.




IV :

There will soon be broken railings
to line the walls
in a rough compass counterpoint

to the tiled floors that tremor
“when the moon fell through the cracks
and the trees were dark shadows like stalking cats”.

Memories drag themselves out of the basement;
the force of slow, staggered

footsteps in darned socks.




V:

Then snow comes

(the still smell of lying in bed )

and about the room,
scatters me.