Reasoning

He made up reasons for her to leave his sofa side;
bowls of tomatoes elbow avalanched off the counter,
cookery books Kandinsky splat with perfume.

With the curtains closed
he hauled his canker root nerves up into branches,
held the pencil like a sapling.

He caught tear bullets,
wrote her that he knew by now
the extra set of pillows must mock,

that all the music
must make her eyelids
feel like bowling bags.

Each effort he made six,
persuaded his clock wrist
to instruction slip across the paper,

'trace your fingers round the bath plug'
'lick the dust off a bay leaf'
'make a supper spaghetti labyrinth.'

She found them in her shoes,
in the middle of a ball of string,
the bottom of the garden by the swing.

In her sleep she saw him
gristle jittering down the kitchen grass path
avoiding the crab apples unseasonly falling.