Robert Verdon, #352, Tryst

Share an hour with me

I’m sitting on the pink swing

By the baby health centre

Watching a spider.

I love you because you’re unloved, like me

here’s a gate with no key under the broken stone —

the baby house is locked against itself.

On the thin-shadowed path, moonparing-lit,

we may unwire like bonsais.

Our lives will wear thin together.

Through the web I see

an impetuous glimmer in the east —

a crouching beast?

a monsoon in a biscuit tin

came inside, half-starved and thin,

turning the town to crumbs.

you laugh

you say

I see

dry pleats in desert stew

fountains in an Islamic garden

a silver button not found on men’s clothes

the shining tines of a distant city

And I discern

an iron sail dipped into an ember sea

an orchard of bells

a stile between two wildernesses

a ship harrowing like a tractor

Whitened memories

Sweep through my blue mind

From yours

Droning, eagle circling high over the playground,

Eternal wind.

Let us lie, and pretend

To pass into haze …

"So you’ve taken up —"

We share our wry pasts

Under a pumpkin sky

Like the bowl behind the eye.

In the duskwhorl the moon quakes

We strew marigold

Down the linseed lane

Here and back again.

Please stay

I love you because

You’re the raga of my youth

and my ravaging future

Home at last on holiday

Forever beneath the low orange ceiling

And the stained stippled pane.