From I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (Poems on Love) by Mark Pirie
The Cold Harbour
for Carson McCullers (1917-1967)
It's in the eyes of lovers who wake
Beneath the sun; this April morning
I watch them there sitting by the dock
With sleep-weary eyes at eight o'clock.
It's there, you'll find, but are they awake?
It seems so. Then why are they mourning
With tears, like wells, filling their eyes?
Someone's gone - given their good-byes.
It's the cold harbour where sadness
Can reign in no-one's business.
Yet the chill will not keep you alive;
So - go right inside, find that sad café.
You've a seat, but forget the latté.
It's that final wave; no-one can survive.
A Little Waltz
1.
They were different all right. The upper parts
were his for a while. She moved in downstairs.
The floorboards were their enemies.
The nights, of course, came thick and solid,
a mattress of dark. Until finally they were 'together' and
forests were seen in the ruins of their eyes. Up, down. Up, down...
Their lives became that, like a chant that's long
been silenced, no longer en vogue.
Yet, at breakfast-time, shards of glass would enter their words, creating
stark reminders of past loves like lipstick smudged.
They were different all right. Not counting
what lay beyond their walls: a walk-on universe they could do well to hide.
2.
Time passed. They moved on. She found a job. He found a house.
Their lives 'continued'. But even so she could be seen still bearing down,
a catwalker no longer in fashion. More time. A year and four seasons crept in.
His was still upper, hers were even lower, yet the rooms of their minds
were now carpeted with the softest felt of their hair.
She would think of fingernails; he: of teeth, her hands, of locks broken in, items stolen,
only to be recovered (by her) and put on show. They were different all right.
But at last, they met up again.
It was in a staircase at her work. She was going down.
He was going up. Their sparks had seldom showed
but now their silence lit the circuit boards
of their hearts. It seemed they were still in order. Up, down. Up, down...
They would last the Winter; they would last the New Year.
The end was two levels, moving ever apart, like a pain they could always sight.
© Mark Pirie
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