we placed our bed
30 yrs ago
we put items round it
the accessories of love
creams, cucumbers, eggwhisks and spoons,
silk ropes, diaphanous dreams
pornography and hope
and we set to it with gusto
sometimes you would leap into the air screaming
sometimes I would shake the walls with my cries
often we would wonder if the neighbours were disturbed
even though there were none until the next valley
Many summers followed in showers of birdsong
the windows wide as our legs so the sweet weather could enter us.
In winters the low warm lights caressed our thighs…
we crackled with frosts, thawed in the inner folds of our bodies,
chafed and scratched each other red with use,
stained and ruined ourselves.
The world was a tired sensual morning
dragging itself from us ….the hot deep mud of desire.
One year we moved the bed to a different room
The joy of a change. The joy of settlement.
You gave a shriek of indignant womanhood…
and left in hormonal terror
I moved the bed again
to a room that felt less lonely
but it didn’t work
the nights just rained constantly
the mornings grey with aftermath.
Other women came to try
this new position
but they got backache
or contracted fear
or they met your ghost
on the way to the bathroom
I became a prisoner here
chalking the months on the bedpost,
the touch of others irrelevant
the hope a curse
and when you came back
the jailers unlocked the iron gates
to let you in
chuckling,
sniggering obscenely
amongst themselves.