I don’t want to stir,
I want to stay here
and wait for the night
to come headlong and
silent slipping onto me
again, cold, a salve
and a tranquilliser
slipping into circular
arteries under knotted
layers of muscle and
bone crushed slipping
round, down my flesh
and the memory of
yours, desire, refrain
of circling birds that
claw remembered flesh
naked and nerves shot
throughout my brain
sparking buried short
circuits, connections
fused rigid into pins
and needles, teases
my flesh into a smile
and a flash of stony
teeth, laughing like
Tityus and Sisyphus
thinking and feeling
numbed, stoned into
their heads by day
and the myth of salt
pillars memorised for
nothing, carved into
stone yet presently
obscured, relief, out
of sight in the dark
wanting nothing, just
as good as forgetting
now: everything still,
and nothing wanting.

[Published in tabourey, Oxford 2003]