Lies in Longing

For M.

I

It is spring

And infatuation’s wistful

Breath curls itself around

My restless brow. Seasonal

Scenes offer themselves

Like spells eager to be

Cast.

Sunset on the train;

Acrylic cyan smothering

Scarlet, spires and mills gilded

By a bloodshot brush.

Then out, catching the rising

Chitter of birdsong sailing

Across long leisurely strands

Of dusk—funny how this simmering

Sound seeps in so strongly now

Only to become background buzz

Once the heat has settled.

Then walking across well-known

Ways, inhaling the evening

Air, thick with blossom’s insistent

Tang.

The box world of winter

Lockdowns cracks and folk

Come out, plodding through

The warm light, sipping sweet

Memory fog, its fizz fragrant like

Feast-air in days of sweet inertia.

The call of spring bubbles

Like a hex, ready to ensnare

With songs of longing, perhaps

This time to be fulfilled.

I am fearful of its promise

And its lies.

II

We meet in the watchful company

Of corpse-like geese. A brief birthday

Drink between the bustle and the bloom.

Despite your arduous toil,

You are arrestingly effervescent.

I hang on your every word,

Your voice, magnetically mellifluous,

Your passion infectious like

Like a disruptive dream, its lucid

Holler beckoning in blistering colour;

Your smile sweltering like

The heatwave’s rumbling swoon;

Your skin and brow glistening

In the dreamy afternoon; your mind

Humming with elegant endowments,

All impossibly bewitching.

I look into your pale blue eyes

And see deep wells of jade green,

Rich like the secrets of the soul.

I feel the sheen enfold

My every sense—Our friend enters

To lift me from the daze. Conversation

Carries us pleasantly along

Warding off the worming

Word, its silent gathering

Of dread.

III

When I finally stumble into bed,

My head ringing with girls night

Chatter, the four letters pierce the perfect

Glisten of my haze and I begin swaying

On the edge. I am fearful

Of the fall. That frightening, annihilating

Fall, my heart-muscle memory

Aches as I recall how once I risked

And lost it all for the sake of longing

And its lies. Still, once or twice

Before I’ve stood here, on the brink;

Nothing irrevocable has been said,

Done or felt, I think.

We go no further than the doubtful if,

I tell myself, as I struggle to elude

Spring’s engrossing snare. Meanwhile,

The Goddess shrugs, and lifts

Her brush to repaint your portrait

In hues of heedless hope.

Her strokes wane while

She looks for pigment

In the rush.