A WEEKEND PASS

Dear Heather

What dread privilege brought me a weekend pass

I do not know, but my stomach would frighten a bee keeper

In anticipation of meeting you these years hence.

I can smell your snake skin hallway and practice

Hanging my regulation donkey on your antler rack;

I can feel the infusion of your nettle and lemon tea on my tongue;

And I must get used to checking my zip

And watching my back again.

Or  I could return to my mildew hovel, empty

Nearly a decade, fills my heart with tears: my pungent drains -

Pungent with what was not found - and the moss

Which may have become a mat.

Heather, is the Z-bed still unfolded in your garden shed?

SPARE ME THE TRUTH

Dear Heather

         “Am I truly the rag doll at your feet?

            You want me to dance free of my bones at last?

            I was jellyfish, not temptress;

            Nor was I  high priestess of your desire and disgust.

            I was burning but you made me ash;

            And now I want back what’s owed, not a parting caress.”

I do not view this extract of your letter as a poem.

A letter to a Gerald cannot constitute a poem.

All the poems I wrote you and what do I get?

A copy of a letter to your ex-lover

Which you want to turn into a poem.

It cannot be a poem.

It’s not a poem.

“Touch my flesh. Does it taste of earth?

  Press your ear to my mind. Can you hear yourself?

  Or is it the shredder you placed there?”     

Bloody rubbish!

Besides, your parting shots to me were far more hurtful.

They were poems!