Mackerel

Maybe there was something in the waves
as they cascaded over one another
in a desperate attempt to reach the shore and die.
That one moment of phanta-fragility
where we both realise we are watching ourselves,
our insignificant relationship break on the rocks,
spilling blood and tears on the tawny sand.
There might be a night coming up soon
where you bury your face in the pillow to muffle the crying,
and you’ll think I never woke up, but I always do,
listening and helpless, because if I do ask what’s wrong,
you’ll say it’s nothing and fake your snoring again.

I bought you flowers on our anniversary
but they were already dead, a sure sign, no doubt,
of the coming end; the late-night telephone messages
and the heartbreak stories to our uninterested friends.
That compatibility we both thought we had torn to shreds
like the clouds in the dispersing mackerel sky we first made love beneath.
That warm, sticky night when we held each other
and never could have dreamed of letting go.

Somewhere, you have your face buried in your pillow,
more intimate with polyester than with your boyfriend.
Meanwhile, I’m faltering on the threshold of sanity and in-

-escapable truths. It was me. I didn’t love you.
Always lost in thought, forgetting to hold your hand
when you reached for mine as I scrambled over rocks
and searched for the errant squawks of oystercatchers.
Your whispered voice cascading over the breeze
like waves dying on the sand and the shingle.

on the shoreline is a bird and it hops. it hops. it hops. it breathes down my neck and caws a call. i take his wing and he leads me over rocks and he shows me the imprint of the night of the mackerel sky and the dark spots in the sand where your tears fell. he lets me go and flies away to meet and greet another hopeless thoughtless romantic coming to inconceivable truths. i dream i melt and become a wave and i race against the other waves to reach the shore and die.