Bobble

You are the only hug

I have had this week

Well, the kind of committed clasp

Which people use to hold back each other’s grief or fear

You kiss my hair with toothless open mouth.

5am, stirring hands, you’re here

Round with routine to begin the work

Revealing the angles of my face

Pin the words ‘hygienic’ ‘sensible’

As if before I was rage and dirt.

-          And yet my hands complicit in the act

Helping you to set the scene

You come in packs, but only one

It takes to turn my being to

 ‘Profession’

Sometimes elastic like that kind of shame

Held together flowers

From the petrol station.

Now we’ve broken natures gesture

From torrent to taper

Expression into

Poise

You remove the flowing confession of my years

Like a fist can crush

A bloom

Can

Stop a voice

And yet I let you round my wrist

Against the veins whose soundless mumble

Propelled these same limbs at fifteen months

To reach out, asking for a bobble.