I deal

I deal

I put on sky blue leggings
and get off the train in a new place
where I am station met and taken to a building with a garden
and I kiss people on the cheek sincerely and they give me cold water
and I hang one handed from the top of the climbing frame
and do not mind that my hip is showing like a pale half moon.

They draw me a bath and I listen to Philip Glass as I shell skinned
get in, and do not pick up Arial
from the back of the toilet cistern.
Glass is 500ml in, dripping notes under ribs –
and I think I love him and if I stop
holding on to the real things, which are actually pretty unrewarding I can hear surrealist
and for an hour am an organism with one intention.

At lunch, we sit under trees which hang like curtains door manning heat,
we eat cold courgette and roast chicken and they all roll their eyes
when the boat comes round before they have finished digesting
but get in anyhow leaving the plates there like a crime scene –
We are going down the river and we all have opinions and talk about death in everyday conversation
and resolve to start taking more photographs and to keep one another happy
and that there will always be people getting off trains in new places.

These things do not matter -
but that we are about and do not feel like we are trying for something, is something.
Just that we like these things, how they make us feel in the company
of friends who share not-ness and don’t have to explain why sometimes,
the fact that water gets colder and hotter
makes you want to cry. Just through the fact.
We don’t have heroes, but we do
think of big things, like gardens and water and books
and do not mind that we are not the centre of everything.
This is not because we are better than other things.
More that we dream of trains arriving in new places
of hugging in things which seem to be nothing.