for M.

your body is my home
your home is my body
you like to polish the wood
until it shines like water
to see yourself in my reflection
narcissist or feminist
a male echo of an ever stranger female

your body is my home
my body is yours
I love to settle in
you love to move the furniture around
I go to sit but fall into bed
of an empty bath
you even rearrange the cutlery
reaching for a knife I slice with a spoon
I carve your name on my chest with a ball
point
it reads ‘here is the bloodless scar
our bond of mundanity’

my home is your body
yours is mine
I live there even when we holiday
abroad
and I’m bitten by flies
scratching your skin instead of mine
applying ointment
to the tiny wounds of years

the gamelan in your ear
will not fade
I try to hear it
to sing it to sleep
to loosen the knot in your neck
the chord of time’s beginning
though we are helpless
still hope fills
your ringing body
that is my silent home