Nathan Thompson

‘a poem is never alone’

all the tools in your workshop may be broken

but I love you for it filled with little spits of iron

leaves are changing the girl in black eyes

to a man grey shadows under they’re saying something

I’m not catching smells of earth wine spilt

beside orange heaters

‘don’t forget me’

music is not everything as water to the touch

new plants assembled on pub tables

every night for a year

I have come here and still have trouble recognising myself

when I light a cigarette beside you reading my correspondence

with the salt and pepper of your commentary

if I have believed one thing it is passing

pleasant hours back dealing under the bridge

by the canal

hooded nights on their way to prayer

let’s ask how rain fondles on its way to the gutter

fiddling with ideas beside an unlit fire

what’s the place you want

searches for strangers

given away at birth I cannot open a book

without wondering if you have read it

in reality there are trees dying broken

light hissed out of evening’s collateral

(bunkers surround the island

it’s hard to remember)

soon we’ll burn an effigy and walk across believing you

a song pinned through your heart to read more air in this