flat.fish.flesh

Damp canvas in the Highlands steered the wheel
that brought this happy four all the way to Spain.
New words and watermelons sealed the deal
and always Burgos in our family fame.

On backs of trucks a language I first read,
is spelt about us as we journey south.
We’ll find the evening lizard and the Med
with consonants that trick and fill the mouth.

Beneath the spreading Almond pitch the tent,
seek out the foreign mantis, inches long.
A postcard written has be lately sent
now held by reader of this summer song.

This time, unbottled for my rainy day,
recalls much more than simple holiday.

I’ll promise you a scrawled out page of green
erupting with your turns, if you will swear
a coat of light to cloak my sprouting scene
and swell the roots and berries that I bear.

Until you’ve been and shone my dear shoots shan’t
break through the frosty muds, won’t litter lanes.
Buds wait instead to open and enchant
the swarms of bugs brought out by new warm rains.

Now March’s soft advances part my thighs,
restoring cheeky pink to this pale grin
that robs cool April of her cruel disguise
by mouthing verse into this body’s skin

My word remains unbroken, ever said,
reciting vows that bound us since we wed.

Your love’s become a dance for twos or fours,
transported by the song to old parquet.
Us couples, arm in arm, flock to the floors,
turn easy arcs and circuits, step and sway.

Dance master has commands and we will swing
ourselves about our partners close at hand.
Your twisting time has bent into a spring,
unwinding with the strut to beat of band.

Between the pluck and the next coming strum,
sweet drama re-enacted by us each,
takes pause from urgent motion, waits to come
back with that pull into your tender reach.

Our ordered cycle finds us back at start,
again to form your love into an art.

A copper shadow cast across the street.
Your yellow skirts all fallen. You laid bare.
Some soft decaying murmur at my feet.
No breeze or broom to shift fresh leaf from there.

In scattered patterns covering the lawn,
brief ghost of green, alive and burning bright,
is radiating colours from that dawn
and waiting to be swept away tonight.

Four feet can scuff a trail right through calm scenes,
they’ll roll your fading prints into a mess,
but what of summer dreams now smithereens,
though held still, felt and thought out, nonetheless?

The image left by leaf’s begun to rust.
Go find its beauty in the year’s bronze dust.