Enclave

 

skinless

the sweat of your palms on the panels

under the tyranny of polished metal

like a crab on a motorway

scratching on the seamless tarmac

skinless

the sun’s heat pressing into your flesh

 

I want to sleep in the weeds of a pond,

that cool green nebula behind my eyes,

sinking into the drifting mud,

translated into water.

 

To watch the dark hull of a boat drift above me,

and raise my face to its rippling wake.

 

Cupped between garden walls with

the scribble of twigs on a gossamer sky.

The globes of magnolia bulbs unfolding,

hanging indigo in the nightfall air.

 

all shudders down a drain

skinless

you can’t checkmate a flipped table

there’s no place to stand to speak to be clever anymore it’s all tilting

skinless

you’re in the guts of a clock now

and the whirring wheels are buzzsaw-sharp

so sink

 

I want it less if we agree.

My deep grass beside the broken wall,

my cracked pages tented in a winter forest,

my cylinder turning in orbit,

with moonlight lapping over its curve,

end over end in the pinwheeling stars.

skinless

Perhaps I can be happy enough to spite you.

 

I’ll come back sometime but for now

pull on the painter,

the rope will glide through the loosening knot,

flick off the rail, flop into the lazy lake.

Give me a kick to peel me off the pontoon.​

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Benedict Cross is a London-based writer. His poetry has been published by Nottingham Poetry Exchange and The 87 Press, and his short story writing by Fairlight Books. He would say what his poems are about, but that would take half the fun away.