I don’t think about the thorns
I think about the blackberries
of your love
how they reveal the labyrinths
of my fingerprints
that touches the dark
trying to find your face
the scars from our dreams
sew us together
you speak in song
sing to the robin
about how your heart
rusted red
you’re the drafts of dusk
that sifts the rusty rafters
songlines become sighlines
fairy lights flickered
when no one was watching
woodsmoke curled to sleep
in the grass
I think of the shadows we could have created
floorboards laid together
the seams of dark between us
thick with spilled stars
I sunbathed
in your shadow
close the gate gentle
make it chime
close it like a delicate thing
as if just leaving
looking in
upon a sleeping child
isn’t that how hearts
should be handled
footsteps made faint
by grass
no knock required
no doorbell
rattling the rooms
just the soft cry
of a rusted hinge
leaves become
same colour
as the fire
that made them fall
stilled by all the sunlight
held in your skin
summer did not live
in that summerhouse
winter and spring
braided themselves there
in perpetual twilight
slow as dream time
you are the stained light
staining the stone
the church ceiling
crumbled into cabbage whites
shadows shattered
into black butterflies
in another field
skylarks sleep
wings taking root
in the earth