we hug and i act cool
as the american fridge ice
shattering on kitchen tiles

Scrolling through my inbox I hold down
the shift key, select all and mass delete
briefly feel the repose of the therapist’s couch.

Hope lies like the edge of a teaspoon, upward facing, a thickness
perhaps enough solidness to knife
through a banana or other soft fruit

a wooden door slams shut in my brain
a man perishes in a space the size of his grave from malnutrition eighty years ago

When I was born
the house was full
of stones, an old blacksmiths shed.

And if a land      loses its people and they
are exiled           will a land feel their absence

They have been burying us,
not realising
we were seeds
of revolution.

I move my hand long
so yours will follow, and though
this moment tastes of tequila soda
paracetamol pillowed on a fizzing tongue
amnesia… pull me in anyway.

No way would they let him keep that tag. They saw
a boy they must rename, must mark
from them, a boy whose limbs folded far too gently,