Have you seen the Lost Boys?

seventy. summertime said i'm sad

I.

a visionary mouth saw your
crocodile tear yawn wide across
the tiger lilies and their longings;

i knew the line of your lip
like the sweet ache of my lung,
seen it sigh as you are passing by
the milky white of my own eye.

and my daring dream tooth
longed to take a loving bite at your arm
that twisted hair ribbons red as roses
like posies in your dolly's hands:
habits die hard for a hybrid like i am.

II.

i still lash with lilts and ligatures
when the words won't come out 
after two decades past: mother says
it's the accident of ventouse and
life cord lapping around a baby's neck;
needle and formula fed i tried to take
to the breast anyway  — "to be you is to be bruised" —
but they all made me blue either way.

and dad tried to crack my habit
for its heinousness, not seeing my birthday blues
for the poplar roots beneath them: the head bashings
i took to when my mouth wouldn't utter a word wayward —
jude's jaw cutting like a knife through the bed sheets 
of my love, misunderstood and crossed out in my sleep. 

III.

my limbs were lacking,
lacerated by thoughts unsaid
and lost toys at the lily pond —
you said, "i love you"
and i laughed at your halved heart.
it's untrue when you do what you do
to i who was not forever for you
as i close my eyes and see noface in my place.

IV.

when i trailed a frightful hand
under the sleeping orange light
that fed your mouth those three nights,
i couldn't see you, my dear friend.

you were a foreigner fled far
from who you are, i saw, but i
did not see, in our lagoon marooned
ways, what you were in your waking skin.

V.

i awoke far from home —
i woke in a bad dream
where i laid flat on my back,
saw your loving bite bruise me bright
as i sailed down the serpentine
in a sigh; washing my dreamt life away. 

(11th September 2018)