(no.1)
You rewrite history in some small way,
look at yourself in the mirror and practice
the face you would’ve made
if you’d been the on begging me to stay.
Sing what you’d say
and leave me dead within words,
change voice and hide lips
swap cracked shredded hands to softness
on strings in sun, sang
sickly as sadness sours
in the heat
We both live as though I never went there,
you try not to see it,
as your lips chew the image of me on the bed
draped, down and drearily dreaming
of the lover you remain, harmonising
No no no
sing words I did not say
I do not speak that way
and nor do you.

(no.2)
Keeping me there
plane, flood, dying over and over
living in verse 3 of Hallelujah
fading quieter and quieter
till the chorus becomes a repeated question
worship to beg to one sided howl
from the confessional I had to build around us.
Those songs sit heavy now but none more so that this one
my love written down in a funeral lament
sing my death to the lonely hearts
looking for touch in the heat
there.

(no.3)
I see you there
you walk backwards, drunk, stumbling
smile with teeth memory steals,
trip your tongue over So Long Marianne,
while I continue to go my way
and you continue to go yours
against the law the poem made,
almost tattooed five times
gripped till fingers bled
whispered like buoys, far now.
Parallel lines still distant and simple now
as you deflect to another sweet little song,
starting over with fresh hair to become metaphorical
and I’ll be leaning away forever,
a reluctant slow tearing
morning flag to morning flag
to a clandestine melody, now heard.