No Name Joe

Pumps water
from the well,
nice and slow;
drenches his shirt –
smells of petrol
driven mowers,
cigarettes – piles
of rotting leaves.

Sweat trickles
down the back
of his neck –
makes me shiver;
doffs his cap,
as I watch him
lay the hedge
along the field;

fancy...
this afternoon
we might bruise
the dew-damp vetch –
trample down
some nettles.

Can fair taste
his skin;
tanned,
weathered;
calloused hands
that smell of tallow
and wood-smoke.

He’d call me
‘his Lily Rose’,
as close to my lips
as a man could be;
the timbre of his tone –
gritty as the floor
of a downtown dive,
and his eyes –
a mossy pool.
How I long to jump
straight in,

and then we’d lie
in the meadow,
where dogs bark,
far off; where trains
chatter past – way
in the distance,
and his name –
whispered
by thistle-down
as it blows.