There Will Be No Other End of the World

It is a day busy with sunlight, boasting a bowl
of blue sky. I welcome you into a realm
of white gold walls and windows...
This might be the end of the world.
There is certainly a sense of climax,
of a distance travelled. And of destiny too -
as if our paths have been predicted
by a blind prophet - and the choices
we have made at every signpost were not our own.
Yes, this is probably the end of the world.

As I lead you to the bed, my whole life
flashes before my eyes, and we collapse
onto that white island, becoming the centre
of our own universe. The furniture rearranges
itself to orbit our sun as we begin a slow,
groaning implode...

Yes, I'm sure this is the end of the world.

*

I ask you to handle me as you would
your favourite book - you run a finger
down my spine, just for effect -
then trace out the Braille of my freckles,
not forgetting the extra notes you have
scribbled in my margins.

You slip your hand between my pages,
and my breaths become one long ellipsis...

*

Your fingers comb
my hair
and you are
spinning,
spinning gold
from straw.

*

I am the sun-swallowing horizon.

And I am here to consume every inch of your light.

*

My foot scales the wall - climbs onto the window ledge
where the sun is hissing and fingering the glass.

But we do not worship false idols here.

*

Night is here and you are not. I have left space for you
in the bed. My eyes fall on the window ledge.

I lift a leg from the duvet and retrace my footsteps
up the wall and remember you. Your touch. Yes.

*

I dream of an exile lived in that forgotten corner of France.
Lying in bed in a converted farmhouse I teach you
the parts of the body in French... "Ici la bouche...
la mâchoire... le cou... les doigts..."

You trace out each word with your tongue,
and soon you are fluent - whispering, murmuring
your new language into me, into the night.

*

And now, what is left after the end of the world?
The dark smell of brown sugar in an empty kitchen,
my cousins playing cricket in the park...

And me, sitting on my bedroom window sill
with a cigarette like a quill, smudging your name
onto the glass - the ash thicker,
more permanent than ink.