silent home for margot

your body is my home
your home is my body

you like to polish the cherry wood
until it gleams
to see yourself in my reflection
narcissist or feminist
a male echo of an ever illusive female

your body is my home
my body is yours

i love to settle in
to know where things reside
you love to move the furniture around
i go to sit but fall into
an emptying bath
and dream about metaphors of time
and age

you even rearrange the cutlery
reaching for a knife i slice the old parmesan
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
in place 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
helpless as we are
still love
resonates
emanates from our ageing body
of music
that is
our silent home