Past midnight,
come the hours of calm.
Where the ether is still,
still enough to see its reflection.
Minds and fingers twitch,
the heady rush of this world’s
many tempting deaths, abandoning reality,
in return to the cold sobriety of the bedroom ceiling.
In a carnal crash of two
eyes glazed
heated in sexual need.
We sought our delicious counter.
I approached you,
bearing words of no weight.
You were smiling, cheeks rosed,
eyes coyly flitting away.
Upheld by the bar and it medicines,
we back and forth, exchanged air,
hoping for a bold gale,
so we may sail afar.
And so,
surrounded by shoes fitting another,
in your bed, I wake.
An explorer of every pleasure’s niche,
my right arm humming, unconscious
from a precarious night’s pose.
We sip tea, and a second one too,
laying again exposed,
as we flick questions, discovering
passions and pursuits .
Clothed now in Hampstead, we part,
returning to our lives before this past morning,
our gaze locked, gasping reunion.
Enveloped in cotton I fidget
revolving in my sheets,
stabs of light piercing the venetian blinds.
Bemused by last night’s journey home.
My core nauseous
from spent pleasure
and shame
from the night before.
I was there,
in full force.
Regaling unfamiliar ears
with the same stories.
My words are shouted at midnight,
love and anger laboured
on unseen paper.
I die
my face unknown to light’s eye.
For whom do I aspire
to see my words?
to rescue eyes and ink cast earthward?
to validate muted loves?
to love
me?
J.C. FitzDerick 