Vacancy and Ice | Jenny Middleton
Your questions brood over me
like clouds pregnant with snow
lolling recklessly across
a bitter sky.
and my words are hungry as a winter
grieving a skull pent cage
battering the salty barred lids of my eyes
with blunted blades fighting…
how quickly this expanse, this chisel
of vacancy and ice
has spiralled, dividing my body and mind
these halves of me are all
I dare
to trust your vagrant snow-blind touch with.
dawn seems distant in this endless anaemic night
that you insist should be glutted
with your silky tattooed sentences.
You seem not to see
them circle and pounce like uneasy vultures
at the parameters of each others meaning
and while these circuit my sieged mind
I can offer only my lips
alone in answer
but not their breath and voice.