Brian Purcell #18 Music From Another Room

Music From Another Room

Drowning in waves like this was just

the highest joy

                        then gradually

everyone crept          under the bed

our whispered conversations

took us only so far

we couldn’t move

we wanted to be

dancing in the other room

drowning like my brother

beneath sinuous lines

in a Hockney painting

jazz     rock ‘n roll      sex

sax      the words are            getting heated

imagine the conversations

Emily Dickinson had

in her attic     with herself  

the universe    whatever else

you can imagine

though ecstasy and the angel comes

to St Teresa

the most profound involves

no-one else –

or at least we imagine so

I hear you talk

but I’m alone

and don’t want to think

of the light in your eyes

we are so close

in the bed’s low darkness

can’t see whom I’m with

can only hear

music from another room

lilting above

our whispered conversations