MAISIE COHEN
I.
He sees me
In the corner of his eye
A head full of bad ideas
Staring at my hands
Resigned
Did he see the explosion?
Simulation of a mushroom cloud
Blowing through my brain
Littering the surrounds
What a sense of humour
Let them flounder
Too many macabre possibilities
Glued to the faces
Of my fellow passengers
Rain, where are you now?
You dress the sky each morning
But tonight
When I need a drop
To wash away this frightful mess
I find the air starch dry
Bar one or two meagre tears
I laid in the grass
Nearby
II.
Darling,
This love is madness
I've left you more times
Than I can remember
And it's not just because
I seem to have early onset dementia
Driving through
guttural moans
I self-consciously review
As well executed
on cue
I fall apart
I feel like Cate Blanchett
In that movie where she has red hair
and mascara stained cheeks
And I wonder if my face looks like that
but less poised obviously
Crying and driving
Should be illegal
But the fine
Should be a consensual group hug
We have helpfully enacted
The exact definition
Of an on-off relationship
You tell your friends you love me
But do you tell them
How the appearance
Of three creases beside your eyelids
Makes you more handsome
Than a Persian cat
How your grin
Is a missile
That disarms me
Releasing a percussive orchestra
Of dopamine
Into by bloodstream
Lover,
When did you arrive
And why didn't I realise
I'd adopted you?
It must have been
Somewhere in between
Your hands down my pants
And you attempting to drag
My limp-limbed body, catatonic
With laughter
Through the garden...
Are we heroes or villains
In this story?
And whose story is it anyway?
I'm not good at exit strategies
I can't just replace you
Like they did Rick
On the Bold and the Beautiful
And pretend everything is fine
This dimension
Is more slippery
Falling
Is where we begin
And end
My fingers rolling gently through your hair
I let go,
And glimpses of magic
Taunt me