Pumpkin

I carry it like a fat child in my arms:
my bright pumpkin. The stars swing
their strange eyes upon us,
my own turned against grey rain.
Under the knotted light of streetlamps,
I feel I have stolen
somebody’s head.

A great bright moon upon the table,
I lift my knife with marvellous calm
and carve, steady-handed, the damp hiss
of letters all slid out like mud, the one
rude syllable of your name. I have no time
for cartoon faces, my smooth blade sucking
clean letters. Fiction.
No lunatic smile, no soft teeth, only one
webbed line of alphabet ghosts.
Sweet earthy breath. Deadly orange.
Seeds on my hands like follicles.
Here is the skull of a make-believe man;
head tumbled clean from his shoulders.

This is the part where my tiny flame
sweats hollowed flesh, this huge
warm crown my trophy.
I set it at the window:
a bloodless heart, faceless name.
I am the lipsticked Dorothy,
cheek white-flattened on glass,
my hand on a good friend’s skull.

In the mizzling streets, bag-swinging
children craft brick roads
between mouthfuls of toffee.
They do not notice my flowering shadow,
this pumpkin-moon blooming on walls.
Not one of them shocked by the devilish light
of your name burning white in the mirror.

En Suite

You have taken to bathing at odd times of the night.
Pearls floating on your collarbones,
salmon-coloured stars,
you call this your Sunday best,
white moths spinning at the windows.
Dripping before the mirror,
becoming art.

Every night you become the slim nude
unstitching herself of the bathwater
on two glossed legs.
Each candle light blooming gold
along your wingless spine.

Tonight, the bathroom unoccupied,
the moon’s soapy eye at my window.
Like habit, you haunt me,
bath-wrinkled and serious,
shuddering in a damp towel.
Your talcum imprint snowed onto my skin.