Monday 23 January 2012

Nothing to show for it


I wear my pleated skin like the waves on a lakeshore,
My silence is the silence of many languages.
If there is no beginning, there cannot be an end;
No round pebble shaped words clinking into pledges
No dots between my brows, no conch at my wrist
No evidence at all to show what exists, exists.



But it does, and you can come anytime to me
To the curve of my armpits, to the hollows of my throat
The hardest diamonds and softest dough both have nestled
Between the spaces of my fingers, in the odd hollows of thought.
The creases of my eyelids have learnt only to wait
And made of it a religion, to change that now too late.



There is no beginning, there is no end
And you can come anytime to me
To the hammocks of my elbows as they hold and let go
To the folds of my skin like ripples in eternity.
I can’t promise any proof, of my faith, in you, or me.
This too may die someday, there is no guarantee.



You can choose to wander on complicated paths
Beset with hard riddles, and then come back and lie
With your temples on my collarbone, arm across my navel
Your breathless hand draped on my unselfconscious thigh.
Though I move with you, I always come to rest
Somewhere you can find me, obvious and easiest.



The planes of my faces set hard into ancient canyons
Soft, eroded dreams of twisted limestone.
There will be no end, because I can’t point at a beginning
Love has always been there, it hasn’t been worked at or grown,
Watered and watched over - a purple flowered vine
In a crack amongst the rockface.  It’s always been mine.



And yes, things may die even when not watched over
But you may come to me anytime and verify
The waiting hollows of my thoughts, like thumbprints on risen dough
Touch your lips to my life, rest your fingers on my thigh.
What’s begun before beginnings can only end after all ends
Love will always be there, but I offer you no evidence.

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