Blue paint
There’s dayglow-soaked outrage
all over the news.
Petitions, bold claims and
die-in campaigns.
Point-scoring games
play out on the airwaves.
Blue paint. A bus.
Another buckled bike.
Balham to Bloomsbury
two times each day.
Eight miles there, eight back
on the cycle superhighway.
I walked the length of it
one more time today.
Traffic zipping and
zooming by,
bisecting the city.
Streaming round the corner
in a blaze
of strobes and twinkles,
bikes swarm
around Waterloo.
Backs to the Imax,
hugging the road
like impatient lovers.
I sit, growing cold
on a concrete bench
as they shimmer past.
A lilac satin bra, long dry,
hangs in the bathroom.
A toothbrush, bristles bent,
fossilizes at the sink.
Brushed suede brown boots
lean together in the hallway.
Chains and rings,
shiny dangly things,
lie, unworn, by the bed.
I ache, today, for the taste
of your minty-fresh teeth.
I long to watch you
decorate yourself.
To glimpse a curve
of lilac satin.
Or the arc of a calf,
clothed in soft suede.
Instead I see you
pulling
on black leggings,
twisting
a handful of hair
into a frayed red band.
Pink neon jacket, bright
in the mousy morning light.
Your alien-helmet head
blowing me a smiling kiss.
(2013)
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