i am very busy trying not to need you too much. you pass through me mylove and i’m like the land at harvest. fine toothed and run ragged. a salted rim and an xl bully. i’m so sorry but my jaw has simply closed around the idea of you. i pleat my words together. stitch a skirt todisguise their weight. one day i’m caught in the rain and can’t stand up. youcan’t stand it either all those wet words i wear for you around my waist i arrive home and you crack me open like something crisp and refreshing. i fizz. yes i do believe that in my life there is an edge and ican get to it. i fold in my own hands and you fold over my smacked lips. atthe strangest moments i find your hair in my mouth. a chill runs down me like the slim fingers of a harpist. three tugs equals one shudder and it’s a fact i love! the harp is the most percussive string instrument.i think about which of us will outlive the other. which is to say i think of thebright colours of your life frescoed across the ceiling of me. i think of myself sun printed against the heat and across the surface of you. neither of us ‘last’ necessarily. i think what i’m trying to do with you is glovemyself within myself. i think what i’m trying to do is take my heart makemultiple incisions [a million little lashes] and fan it out like an accordion. play my love on the street corner. you are one of those people who press the full weight of themselves into the ground. yousink into yourself like a talon and teach me thatpleasure is as good a guiding principle as any.Competing Interests