Dali's Clock

The trains rattle over the viaduct,
the boiler bangs and clicks its tongue;
restless in its red cupboard over the sink.

I lie awake, surprised by the sheer randomness
of memory. My mind, like an old projector,
flashes scenes on the wall opposite my bed;
smoking roll-ups in the back of Christian's car,
lying on the lawns of Wadham College, Oxford,
not knowing those angel-shaped shadows
I left in the grass would be
the best impressions I made there.

*

My parents bought me a clock in the style of Salvador Dali.
All painted plastic, parading as metal and glass.
I was mildly fascinated by it in a gift shop in North Wales -
it wasn't a hint, but my mother took it as such.

Now it melts over the edge of my book shelf;
a fried egg creeping, slithering, from the pan.
I suppose it is Ibsenian, that this is a motif for my life.

Marvell had something to say on the subject too:
"Had we but world enough and time..."
But that's the problem; we don't - we are in Time's debt, and sooner or later
we'll have to repay our loan.

I knew, of course - it was scrawled
all over your face when you walked in;
not this time. Not ever. Period.
I'll pretend I'm OK with that until it's true,
even if it takes years.

*

Remember how we slid to the edge of the bed that first time?
We hung over the duvet like Dali’s clock, my neck curving back;
a bridge for your mouth to wander over.

And then how we lay, top and tailing on the sheets,
like the Gemini sign, fingers entwining to make
our own centre of gravity, our own little sphere.

*

After you have left me, I run myself a bath.
Sitting in the water, my big toe circling the tap,
I read Toni Morrison: "It was as if she were afraid
she had hallucinated him and needed proof to the contrary.
His absence was everywhere..."

I fear that I loved you so much I made you up.
Wrapped in a towel, I look for evidence
of your being here; your empty coffee mug
on the table, a pound coin on the kitchen floor
shaken from your jeans...

*

I turn twenty in two months. I wonder what it will be like
to spend the rest of my life never quite getting over you...