he dithers round the kitchen, lifts his 12-string from her hook,
strikes a ringing rasgueado, the echo bouncing back
emphatic from the slate flags and off the marble table.

This is how (I like to think) it begins:
night-time, August, the Devon cottage, where
the darkness is so complete . . .

When naked with myself, I feel where a right elbow isn’t, then is. I let my left palm guide me through the exhibition of my body.

The night of his arrest I climbed a hill
to find a deep cave in which to hide

As a kid, Nehisi used to sleep in a treehouse. He could curl right into it from his bedroom window. He would have a hard time falling asleep every time his parents got loud or physical.

I don’t wear them
or have any
but you gave me a pair
of seven-inch goth platform heels.

They say change is a constant,
but this constant became a coefficient
always racing to catch me

What will you do in winter dear when drifts
cover your fingers and shoes

      Tour of the Excavation Collaged from text in the ‘Ice Age to Iron Age’ gallery at the Great North Museum, Newcastle, UK The enigma is why this civilisation became extinct at the same time as a peak in carbon 14, which is a natural element, but in...