Another

Kind of
Need

A clock struck in the museum and one on the junction

of Royal Mile and South Bridge. An ambulance
without its siren jumped the lights.
It’s time I laid down these artefacts of faith
and watched them shiver,
rise, and like the shower’s breath
hide my naked body in the mirror

1
Singing ‘be acceptable’ in shul
a dozen of my people out of key
return me to the peace of being small,
hearing ‘be acceptable unto me’

2
I learned to say ‘I love you’ without meaning
‘I promise I can love you in a week.’
A beginning again each morning,
my ‘love’ firm, my ‘I’ weak

3
Some days I’m a bellows on a bed,
this is called the mindfulness of breathing.
Stops be be acceptable teeming
cleans my unto me head

4
I’ve seen on windy days the sand is mist
that coils past my calves and toes
and too blessed to be stressed
babe is strung out to the shallows

5
When facing up to loss we have a choice:
despondency or faith in something new.
I’m a recovering nihilist like everybody else
and could’ve been a fascist if I hadn’t been a Jew

6
You’ve left me as a flapping tube man
hawking the nights so there’s no time to grieve.
I’ll find someone kind, stay if I can,
a suitcase by the bed for if I leave

7
I’ll say I wanna lay her on the bed
and fuck her until she comes,
that I give unbelievable blessèd head.
And I long for a weekend at home with my mum.

8
A child swinging from the tendrils of the willow
saw green of grass and leaf, then blue of sky.
Last night I called your name into my pillow
on the off chance that you’d hear me and reply.

Then running mist in Pilrig Park,

somewhere I’d left you once before,
a hand reached at me through the dark,
I worried at your cuticle, then swore.
Fuck. The stars. They won’t come out
until you leave, Louisa, love –
your sparrow ribs will break, your heart
will never say enough’s enough.

Now watching a clip, a clit, a breast,

I pause, cause you’ve appeared again
to say I love you feign disinterest
and trace your jawbone with concealer pen –
accept me be me unto mist me please
call in your ghost, it’s getting light.
Only, tell me again, lift up your eyes,
will it all will it ever be alright?

9
10
The title is taken from a wonderful poem of Sarah Howe’s.

11
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