Lovers and wife’s lipstick  leave rouge palimpsest  across my funeral arms,    tell the mortician ‘I’m so over them’  and my neck still slips from the rope    If my fingers could pull strings from the sun  they'd strum guitar across your breasts,  could you feel my absent  hands in...

When he smashed the   glass into my face  did he realise the scar above my   eye would become a life metaphor?    Toe-to-toe, tribe-to-tribe  even cavemen hid their blades    I arrived home late  she nursed my wounds  and took me to bed 

There’s always been a wrapped gift under my Christmas tree, scent of a stranger’s hand beneath bow tied by anchor fingers  Fear and monogamy prevent their opening Ivy hogmanany creeping up new year staircase, anniversaries of silent shotguns?  It could be wedding ring soaked in mountain...