Thought Walk
(loneliness is like a walk inside a holly bush –
greenly pretty, but dangerous)
I’m thinking about stones again.
And faces looking at stones, a head
so full of cathedral dreams it becomes God.
Religion is a bracelet with the clasp broken,
every charm tumbles towards thoughts of you,
I want to beatify your beard.
I cannot open this gate.
The cows turn their backs on me.
I contemplate Chaucer, then think better of it.
I am no Wife of Bath, and you keep dreaming deaf.
I check for signs of rust, so the gate uproots itself.
The Mother Tree is diseased and burning.
Joan of Arc sits in its hollowed trunk moaning
about men with holes in them – she begins unhooking ghosts
from her chattering head, but you have already fled.
I bury another stone in my heart.
Your saintly solitude is captivating;
my yearning becomes a noose, but I’m afraid to jump.
Feet can be fiends, so I dance stones into breadcrumbs;
but still you do not come.
I think about dead words and kissing frogs.
A dragonfly revolves around my head on wings
familiar with Ted Hughes’ mythology and teeth.
The surface of my hope is rippled by thoughts
escaping from the heat of your oven eyes.
My fingers aspire to be kites.
I have become dust, caught;
a vacuum clogged on pieces of heart –
and I am the girl in love with your beard;
hiding all razors beneath pebbled thoughts
in case your distance decides on a cutting.
wampirevatermelon 