Wee small hours

I. Scar Tissue

These dead flesh
hardened over the years
no mere ugliness
of scars are these
but my armour
like everyone needs one
proof against pain

This almost happiness
this feeling like a child
I take great pains
to wrap carefully
from cover to cover
until only my fears
stay outside

When you offer me
the promise of
your fingertips
this violent greed
for their softness
scares me back
into the familiar
warmth of my cell

It isn’t as easy
as is rumoured
to stand butt-
naked in daylight
I apprehend
the cold glare
of prisonlamps
I can almost hear
the surviving ghosts
the rubber rods

And I almost begin
to forget
how hungry
you make me feel.

————————–

II. We know.

Things there are
that we know.

How to caress the masks
we put on in daylight.
To hold hands over dreams
we know are in sight.
Make me start.

We know how to smile
without looking at eachother.
How to hold conversations
while laughing with others.
Make me hope.

We can float a trip to the moon,
booze bubbles in a Martian bar.
Be loving, be lonely.
Make me dream.

But can we hold hands
over pains we must hide?
The weight of our fates
we all bear inside?
Can we cobble all our
wobbly worn heels
and dance out of rhyme
way past closing time?

Make me trust.

2007

09/16

CATEGORY

poetry
reflections

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