Skinning words, two-part arrivals
She came back, suddenly
god eats your soul
At 3.47 this morning
like a custard tart
I’ve learnt not to ask
pushing the crumbs of boundary
Where she’s been
from the corners of mouths
I turn over, put my head
a knave of bachelors
Between her shoulder and breast
wayward as a slipped jib
The way I know she likes
splitting out of the skein
Later she’ll stir, put
the incomplete scrabbling
Her head on my flokati chest
where the marks dug through
Place her hand over mine
searing in the tangled keen
Rise a little, gently
I will come to a Holy City
Push her lips onto mine
bathe in these cyan waters
And make me breathe again
to make me breathe again
First published in Rye Whisky Review edited by John Patrick Robbins June 2018
Unstill Mosaics The Book of Love, Loss, and Longing 2019
James Walton Poetry 