rings made from rainfall
I’ve been out watching moths
wings made from buddleia petals
brains the ghosts of embers
edges still lit
threads a fuse
you speak in song
sing to the robin
about how your heart
rusted red
a tree shakes off
a torrent of rain
dipped its head
in the sky
a gate
spills the garden
into the street
I won’t speak to you again
I will still sing to you
songs white as whispers
same frequency as ghosts
scars like lips sewn shut
kiss without tongue
is love
the performers
performing for themselves
a slow show
once the wings
of the main show
packed away
instruments played gentle
as injuries
you’re the green fronds of fire
that grouts the cobbled back streets of my heart
the bright butterflies still being born
from the braided shadows of brambles
blossom become sentient
I think of the shadows we could have created
floorboards laid together
the seams of dark between us
thick with spilled stars
bells hold onto
all the peals struck
from the dark
of their bodies
a forever home for shadows
hung in the wind
that whips whispers
from their stillness
a blizzard of butterflies
my sight sand-blasted
I see deserts
stared at by the sun
for too long
oceans of slow glass
a sea of seals
diving into each other’s
molten bodies
light soaked into
a longed-for letter
never sent
never written