Marshes

Take it easy wind

wind

You’re blowing echoes of Hannah’s boots in the mud

The words we used for love were dust

Blackened in these fields by whispered filch

Flowers always lie flat in the liar’s bacchanal

The dominion of dragonflies welcomed us in 96

Microcephalus tops surely mushroomed for God

Moths dipped and dripped gold for you, Hannah

As local dandies offered cans with moss-brown crowns

I don’t know if you told them No

The only blooms were yours on that dead ground

I could see but never let you know

These shapes disappeared in the daylight

Faded ice-cream wrappers from the decade prior

Helped keep our drunken fire lit

And I watched you sit near your friend

To escape burning questions in the shadows

Take it easy squelch

squelch

Mars was never hairy in the books

So it was easier to dodge the crevices

I tumbled into and explored a thousand cavities

On those nights when you joined us

Black Sabbath lyrics felt like homilies

Around the fire with jittering teeth

And moths, dragonflies and other spindly things

Must have sensed the teething of minds

Men became men on Mars, it transpired

And when the first fist arrived to test Terra Firma

The tired motion of a cosmic frailty

Was captured in falling, set to cosmetic failing

I caught your face as I walked off, Hannah

The face of the marsh, blemished and dragged

The romance back to starry tales, all of which

Echoed your boots in the mud, your boots in the mud