Weight

A crest of bones and muscle, crossed by arms,
Multiplication of loss.
The air is so small and black.
What can you breathe in here?

When dreams wash out, late morning,
A boy in a football shirt watches as I come across
All man, all idol.
If I could soften my palms and let my forehead drop,

I might depart without a film score,
Bent by another October, morning window chill,
The absence of any warmth except my weight.

Always that voice, starved, saying:
Go, go on, leave, get on with it!
The wall, protecting us from memory, remains
Until the advent of slow tears, our red collapse.

Always her face.
Never photography persuading, never music.
My life, doubled in a windblown field of four eyes,
Where we lay through a whole seaside summer
In a lie of truth-telling and lips, waiting.