One in a month

is an unacceptable situation to have gotten myself into. Shucks.

I have learned to knit. I have been poorly. I miss swimming. My lungs still hurt if I cycle uphill in the chill nearly-winter wind.

A new poem, unrelated:



Spurn Head

The whip of dune grasses and cuts on the soles of my feet.
It alters, chances the river that feeds it. I race
to the tops and bottoms of dunes that no longer exist.

It is downwards that haunts me, giant slow-beat strides
in the shifting sand. My legs are salt-numbed and hefty; load-bearing
and practical, covered to the knee with every step.

I don’t remember the disappointment, the slowing down,
but lose myself in the towering impermanence
risen from the shining dark. Salt in my hair, cool sand between my toes.

I will return with you to this end of the end of the road
and lie myself down, my hair in my mouth and then your mouth there
with the wind whipping dune grass on us from the folding sands.

I will not tell you that there is permanence in its alteration,
that this is all I have dreamed of whether you are here or not:
that you could be anyone with sour-breath kisses in the dark.