Tortuously delicate embraces

The phone line
was silent
save for
the rustle
of the universe
as it swayed
in the blighted muster

I knew it was S
and S knew I knew
but he would not speak first
so it was a standoff

These calls were the
desiccated shards
of our friendship
that had imbedded
themselves
in our mutual psyche
and stubbornly resisted
excision

S was a butterfly
a giant cobalt lycaenidae
I could sense him
writhing and glistening
as he struggled
to grip the telephone
with his
engorged proboscis

It had been less
than two weeks
since he had slammed down
his pint
showering me
in coruscating scales
and flutter-palpitated
out of the door
of the Nags Head
in Walthamstow

I envied S
his billowing fronds
his feckless and ambivalent
disposition
but S
felt degraded
by
the human condition
degraded
by
my humanity

We could not
endure
there would be no more
tortuously delicate
embraces

but how I wished
he would just
speak to me