Onward we go

Green, the smell of pine

as we tread needles into the ground

on our stroll about the forest on the edge of the year.

The new can be seen from over the way,

only the trickle of an old river

keeping it separate now.

Yet in a few hours,

the trickle will stop,

and the seedlings of trees will shoot up into saplings

in a whoosh of  breath, colour

and cheer.

We will step together, hand in hand,

onto the fresh forest floor

ready to take in its delights and terrors

as one.

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New Habits

They form over months, subtle and sneaky,

habits we’ve picked up by merging so sweetly.

 

Checking ingredients without a second thought,

carrying a full deck of cards just in case they’re sought.

 

Clothes cleaned and ironed for an overnight stay,

fried eggs swapped for part of the other’s breakfast: a good start to the day.

 

One bathing, one readying the bed,

one solving puzzles, one having just read.

 

Phone calls and messages each day we’re apart,

‘I love you’ said often but not so much that it loses its spark.

Return

It travels, fire-tongued

through each cell, alight and intense

up into the wilderness that is your eyes.

Its pure crystalline intent

pasted with letters and notes of our future,

a flash of keys,

a suitcase label,

manuscript pages littering the floor among

scribbled workings of code.

The data is transferred in a single,

pulse-racing moment

as our lips touch finally after so long apart.

Sweet song

Sugarplum, honeycomb

Mild spiced apple strudel,

When will you take my hand

And hope not for my refusal?

 

Oh, pumpkin cakes, sweetheart,

Honeyed fresh-baked bun,

When will you seek the blessing

And hope not to then be on the run?

 

Oh muffin, pudding,

Deep filled cherry pie,

When can I express my love

And say I’ll stand with you til I die?

Bookmark

I turn the page, resting my voice for a second

and catch your gaze on me, eyes bright

and full of delight.

You’ve said many times

that my reading voice is magical.

I wouldn’t have believed you if you hadn’t looked at me that way every time.

If I didn’t know

you’d never

use words that were untrue just to flatter me.

Your words are always true,

as is your encouragement.

As is your love.

And so I shall read for you

until the years catch us up

and I can read no more.

An aromatic infusion

We fly up hills and across sprouting fields,

forwards ten years and back a few months,

all the while staying still and linking hands.

 

The roads are curved, never straight,

always interlocking at some distant point.

How many times have we been in this direction

and haven’t noticed?

 

I see us in a cottage

with a workshop made for inventing

and re-inventing.

Mathematical solutions and puzzle pieces

poured into a teapot with pages from a writer’s notebook

and left to brew.

 

The extracts merge together wonderfully,

a full flavour

of the years we’ve experienced in a single cup.

Trickster Timing

It’s a strange thing, time.

Hours can feel like days

when you have something to look forward to,

someone to go home to,

to hold, to cherish.

 

When you’re with them, days

pass like minutes,

heartbeats of a hummingbird,

rolling the week along

so that once more you have to part.

 

Time, that careful trickster,

changes again,

making every second drag,

as if taking extra delight in the stab wounds

separation

causes you.

Three words

There are times when

I choke back

the words, ‘I love you’.

Not because I don’t mean them,

or I’m afraid.

 

It’s because they are

only words

and no matter how expertly spun,

they will never be able to even come close

to the sensation of having a full heart,

 

the full heart that beats in double time

when it expects you

to walk through the door.

 

The frustrating thing is

that I know your heart

is just as full

and we can feel our love radiate from each other

in everything we do,

 

yet

 

I still want to find this way

of forcing three simple words

into the shape of us

at every chance I get.

Two’s company

Let us chime together,

stepping forth into the hour

where all time stands still.

Our fingers can link, we will be grafted.

Your warmth radiating into me and

my warmth radiating into you.

Our lips may not touch,

but our minds will.

We can speak until the hour is up

or we can be silent.

Lack of words is not lack of companionship.

In that moment, we can be constant.

We can be us.

Wear it on your heart

My hands fit right around your waist. I can pull you in tight, or let you go. We are sewn together, attached by a loose red string. You can wind it; so can I. Together, then. Hand over hand, gaze to gaze, we gather each other up into a tiny pin-badge pressed forever to our hearts.