BATTLE-LINE

BATTLE-LINE

BATTLE-LINE

Did you expect dignity?

All you see is bodies
crumpled carelessly, and thrown
away.
The arms and legs are never arranged
heroically.

It’s the same with lovers,
after the battle-lines are drawn:
combatants thrown
into something they have not
had time to understand.
And in the end, just
a reflex turning away,
when there is nothing, really,
left to say;

when the body becomes a territory
shifting across uneasy sheets;

when you retreat behind
the borderline of skin.

Turning, turning,
barbed wire sinking in.


*   *   *


These two countries lie
hunched against each other,
distrustful lovers
who have fought bitterly
and turned their backs;
but in sleep, drifted slowly
in, moulding themselves
around the cracks
to fit together,
whole again; at peace.
Forgetful of hostilities
until, in the quiet dawn,
the next attack.
  

*   *   *


Checkpoint:
The place in the throat
where words are halted,
not allowed to pass,
where questions form
and are not asked.

Checkpoint:
The space on the skin
that the other cannot touch;
where you are the guard
at every post
holding a deadly host
of secrets in.

Checkpoint:
Another country. You.
Your skin the bright, sharp line
that I must travel to.


*   *   *


I watch his back,
and from my distance map
its breadth and strength.

His muscles tense.
His body tightens
into a posture of defence.

He goes out, comes in.
His movements are angles
sharp enough to slice my skin.

He cuts across the room
his territory. I watch
the cautious way he turns his head.

He throws back the sheet. At last
his eyes meet mine.

Together,
we have reached the battle-line.


*   *   *


Having come home,
all you can do is leave.

Spaces become too small.
Doors and windows begin
to hold your breath.
Floors shift underfoot, you bruise yourself
against a sudden wall.

You come into a room.
Strangers haggle over trivial things,
a grey hair curls in a comb.
Someone tugs sadly at your sleeve.

But no one screams.


*   *   *


Because, leaving home,
you call yourself free.

Because, behind you,
barbed wire grows
where you once
had planted a tree.