Them and Us

 
They lie featureless
in the dark
as if locked
eyeless in foreplay
the night
melting about them
like golden syrup

    *

But I recall an afternoon
in a wheatfield in
summer staring at
the sky in your eyes,
the sun kissing each
iris and above us
at one o’clock
the same cirrus clouds
forming and reforming.

    *

They lie still
reading the small
black love print
inside their minds.

They cannot see the hills
and gorges, the streams
the forests
of their bodies.

They have learned
to love blindly.

    *

But I can recall and afternoon
when the sun
burnt a red-hot path
down your spine.

© 2001 Trout &
Iain Britton