Poem 43

One of the few poems I felt moved to write after the 80s … the black spot is a floater in my eye, familiar internal landscape watched in idle moments since childhood …

( I like the way corneal suggests ‘corny old’ joke … )

Poem On My 42nd Birthday

I’m back where I started from
watching dust motes going about their business
in the sunlit space of a back bedroom
an afternoon nap after a feed
or the warm pleasures of my lover
	       no difference
my body once again growing soft and round
as that baby trying to grasp sparks
and turn the spokes of a universe
on his breath
smug as a bug
secret sorcerer of all he surveys
he’s close again
his singlet still hugging my thin chest his eyes
full of the old sly amusement
                                 the corneal joke
of the black spot I make zig-zag on the white ceiling

years bend to touch

baby belly bulging in the spring sun
sticks of arms and legs
never exactly a hard man
unless it was
to get to know