Breathe in the elegy of your interesting life,
breathe the taste of her whoever she is – or him,
breathe it and smell it, the sweat salt stink that oils the sea,
breathe a long lifting breath in the warm shadow behind a grey or purple cloud,
the colour inside your eyes where only you and one other person is allowed to be.
Wait for the sun and eat it like a chilli pepper.
Taste the humidity in my mouth that washes over in the form of a hot summer’s cloud,
white the furthest edge of a thumbnail or white the fatty tissue of your heart,
or white of a flower you don’t know the name of, or of every inch of sky a few minutes after rain
like soaked cotton.
Michael Holloway