Every seven years

Our ship, canvas flapping like old arguments,

sails upon shared moments,

creates stories told to night-time’s deaf ears.

As dreams, they inhabit the crevices within,

play silences, music to shift us from here to there.

Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night,

hear the distant hum of traffic and see the stars

peering through our window like Peeping Toms.
My skin is haunted with the residue of desire

while beside me you snore in small ripples of sleep.

In the semi-dark, regret attacks cells; flesh hardens;

a shell to slough off when next spring breaks the ice;
sends green shoots through earth and heart. Old flesh

waves a confederate flag and as yellow sun ignites hope anew,

we move on from sedentary rocks to sandy paths.

This love we devour - a lizard able to reinvent itself,

weaves patterns upon the skin of our aspirations

that tell the story of how far we have travelled.

We, accommodating growth, shed old images of self -
emerge again, blinking, smiling, into the sunlight.