Gaia Holmes’s ‘Night’

Night
Gaia Holmes
 
The bedroom window is open.
The coldness of the coming storm
masks the thick scent
of last night’s love.
The moon is low
and I am thin as tracing paper,
nothing left but my outline.
My head is full of voodoo,
my frail breath
like brittle oranges,
and you lie on the bed
in your crucifixion pose.
My task is to keep you alive
with the voltage
of my yew-tipped fingers,
to make you cry like a new born.
The dome of the mosque
glints at me across the rooftops
like a fat and mystic eye.
Outside, children crazy on the electric
dance in a trance,
heels thumping, hair streaming,
plastic sandals flapping on warm tarmac.
Tonight the world is full of sprites.
 
 
from Dr James Graham’s Celestial Bed (Comma Press, 2006)