Gate

Proof

Again and again I discover that I love you
as the joggers hgh past me like coal trains.
I am a pin prick on the palm
of the Metro and follow the coastline
looking out for fissures in the egg earth
where I can sit and make a proof satchel
out of a ballpoint and printer paper.

In Fenham, old ladies align
engagement rings with their coat buttons
and imagine dressing their thin flanks
in front of a mirror
which shows a bed
with sheets print marked by the discs of dark meat
that hang from the pelvic bones of cooked chickens.

In Heaton there are weeks that make only
the sound of a cheek puckering,
and shopping baskets which creak with the proof of living.
The barbed wire walkway leads out love
to a chip shop burning and a bin hocking
phlegm into the Ouseburn, like an old Russian
who sneaks up on people saying
see how slowly you love
the thick brown schmaltz of winter.

Walker finds a way to keep its mates close,
and its chavas with their children
make mountains out of peas
while eating TV dinners off
one another's knees,
and bedtime with its lights out
means we can't remember how
to find one another in the dark.

There’s an awkward kid in Pallion
who writes songs about the junk yards
with their piles of kitchen sinks,
and the carpet stains
which say something
about the way we are moving,
but since they might be ink
or blood or the remains of a secret
we don't speak,
we let the trains keep clacking
like a gate not quite closing
on a mass of half sleeping idiots.