Feel it. Leave it.
Don’t lurch for the easy copy.
That pretty book.
That cliff-top, overhang.
The island and the bay
Where jellyfish sang chorales
and brushed the underbellies
of the yachts. Let the
maritime fly-tippers
sink to the old life
on the ocean bed –
divided lovers mixed with
togas and low density
polyethylene. I took a walk
on Sunday to the Manor Woods.
Some part of the water
had really taken to the trees,
like they had a shared taste in music,
enjoyed getting half-lost in cities.
Feel it. Hold it, that memory,
retrofitted each time you discover it,
that horrid leather sofa in a dull little club.
A night spent in a clay-coloured square.
A group buy pastries and coffee in the morning.
Two of you sit and twist leaflets
into neolithic origami, agree to meet
in Costa Rica in five years time.
But you mean tonight. You mean now.
Feel it. Keep it, somewhere
stuck to the sole of your shoe,
down the back of a pub bench,
in the fist of a statue,
as it plays hide and seek
with you in the wreck of the week.