Four graphic signs

He writes it backwards
in other people's books,
savouring paperclip connections
plain as railing sillhouettes.

Once a week while she finger balls avocados
he holds her shoes like boats
and checks for scalpel blades,
paper cuts and signs of acute angled walking.

He spreads out the world map
and she finds him cheeks flush from Antigua
dreaming of running birds
with blinking eyes hunting out clearings.

Palms petalled around a mug of ginger water
he explains that his heart is mathmatical,
that at a festival something hotrocked his hypothalamus
and now things are straight with steel rulers.