delicate fingers, but a heart is going thump-a-thump

I



You're half mad, they say.
You play piano because you're possessed,
and you speak to kindle love in all the losers in life.
But what we all were surprised at was that you never
ever
got far in life.
(We'll blame in on love, love, love
and circumstance)

We almost fell in love once,
lit by complaining bulbs and sunlight.
Desire bites, it bites, you cried, it tears you in two -
but that's the easy way out, darling,
hiding behind the words of the dead
and the passions of the neighbours.
That's too easy,
but I guess it's you.

You wore thick leather boots to the day you died.
It could have been a trademark, if it weren't that
of your ex-lover's. It was a lie, like you, my love.




II



He collected his love from off the floor,
under the bed,
and from those hard-to-reach chimneys.
There were lashes on his tongue and poems in his purse,
but he didn't speak of them. He didn't speak of much.


All he asked was how far the two of you had gone.
I said of course there's sex, of course there's passion,
they're alive, aren't they?
He didn't reply,
but he kicked the flowers over as he left.