Poetry | November 21, 2024

Priory Rd 

I said I’d write. I said
I wouldn’t lose myself. Oh angel

of the barren meadows,
strangler of my letters, I thought I left you

at the river, at the bank
of the apocalyptic river, where the white swans make a seething
whiteness, fast disgrace. They do not sleep—
they pray. Oh
what will I’ve made. I’ll have waited another
ten months. What’s a year
to a lifetime of desire? Can’t we just lie 
in the grass forever—

When I said can’t, I meant forever.
The way, at that bench in the pasture, the dark night grew darker
and the river, listening, knew everything we couldn’t. Like walking miles
through the fens. What’s born of those lowlands, rising fog, if not
the thing I’m not? We spent all that time 
falling in love. Raf’s garden will have grown
by the end. And for what? Too much champagne at the Ivy
and cocaine in Pimlico, the late night
brightly humming. Nikes, old texts, bad
classics, too much speed. Mimosas in the hot tub, pints
at the Barbican, tea in your living room
as we worried for the future—it’s as if
I’m already leaving. I can’t stop it. The damage,
I heard. It’s already here. Always. On Halloween, by candlelight
in our smoky conservatory, I caught myself wondering
when it’d be me I was. Whether
I already knew
it’d never be. The next time I hop a train, it’ll be December
and, still, I won’t know any better. I’m being tested—
I know. It’s time, timeless, timely, rosehips
and wild hops, blackberries before Michaelmas
lest the Devil take them, lest the Devil

use me, liar!, payer
and renderer, sinful

peddler, prone
to wander, wanting

of order—Look. There’s never been grace
in the graceless house. My life stretched out before me, baby,
like a vision behind a mask. The cloisters
and the towpath. What does the Devil lay? Devil’s lays.
Quid Deo retribuam pro se? Those colder months, I dreamt of trains
and the river flooded. I got to know the lindens. I reaped things
I never sowed. I flirted with the burning hedge, the moon
hot and red as an orange peel above us. What’s known
by the empty page beyond us? The spire of All Saints
throwing itself into the night. Cardamom
coffee, Turkish delight. Like a cat through a window. You were an angel. I wish I were better
at knowing what I’m not. I remember, at the bus stop, not knowing
who I’d be able to become, but knowing it needed to be more
than what I was. The late dusk
something more than dusk. It sang like an angel
above the water, highest river. He was with you. The clouds a color
I thought I’d never see again. The trees
speaking to me through the smog. I’m sorry about everything. 
I hope you call. When they bent, I bent. When they beckoned,
I’d like to say I followed. My visions
haphazard as the truth. I realize now
I want to be you.