The Kingfisher

Second guess

I watch the sun sink through these tangled limbs,
Each beam a golden knife that finds the gap,
turns to ash these varied sins.

Among the clothes and bed sheets
Of a weekend we have spent trapped behind glass
The small cat cavorts and preens
Unaware of the divine scenes that herald
Something apocalyptic
Something extraordinary beyond the
border of our blanketed world.

We drown under the weight of the sun
Drunk in our carbon hearts
The muddy banks fail
The river rolls in
We are ghosts in a land of numbers
The towers grown tall.

Baby, listen.
I hold my breath, summon the words,
My vision blurs.
There are going to be peaks and troughs, I say,
There is going to be tragedy
Baby, please.

There is no reaching you
Arms that might envelop you,
A heart that might embrace
Falls back to the bedclothes
Waiting for the stuttering to stop,
Waiting for breath.