Poetry

Circa

My playmate he is not poetry

he is prose and I loved him

like I love this city, gritty and

grey and real; and if time

were not an awkward linear shuffle

I would love him still

if the world ran on my time looping discordant

it would always be like that day: kind goddess

mushroom tending our puckered brow and summer

and winter merely sidesteps on the ground

to be danced between at will, sun sliver

so crisp against numb winter sky resting

cheek to his knee, Sheffield smeared

miniscule in the valleys below

if it were not this progressive scuffle I would

always love him like we loved the 40 black boxes

that sang a disembodied choir with us laid in its centre

head to head, legs spanning out to opposing walls

a blanket of voices over the dazzled white

gallery floor and one peaked kiss before

security scurried us away

or the cascading glass drops tumbled blue from the sky

we crawled under the exhibition and we laughed

and laughed, it was so beautiful from that upturned

angle

I loved him like I love this city, it snuck up on me

unawares

my playmate went mad in the green room

jungle plants and bamboo and crickets

curiously bleating lime light splashed

over our confused faces, hands grabbing hair

we stared muddy-eyed at the Persian rug

and cried

if we ran in my sweeping loops I promise

it would have always been like this

and I would have loved him proper

and sacred and true but the friend that I loved

chose to leave, and I lost the power

of cyclical vision.

Kirsten Harris