When I Think “Purple”
  
 it is immediately six o’clock, we’re
 walking the dog, who hasn’t 
 yet eaten whatever it was, 
 you are bruised maybe a little 
 but nothing to signify,
 I’ve still got both my
 amethyst earrings.
 Also the face of
 the man we found
 in the old oak out back,
 the dog sniffing 
 his shadow,
 the sky radiant
 and him, gently 
 swinging.
  
  
 
 THING
  
 Her thin, fine spines are invisible in skin.
 I’ve forgotten again, leaned on my desk as if
 my life were not currently entwined with a cactus.
 Leaning on Thing is a bad life choice; she agrees,
 as she generally does, then stolidly shows off
 new buds. So I suppose she’s happy.
  
 Life with a cactus is much the same as life without,
 barring the occasional impalings. When she pales and retracts,
 I water her and hope Cotswold limescale isn’t poison.
 She grows roots quickly in this place
 of too many books and the clutter of decades. Perhaps
 one day I’ll check and she will have bookcases, too.
 They come to us all in the end. 
  
 I dread having to transplant. There are always spines
 I don’t expect. A root or two always severs unevenly.
  
  
  
 Let
  
 I dreamt of contagion
 skin sagging to
 blues      greys
  
 the sadness of sacrificial eyes
 large
 their thoughts weeping
  
 you had no hands
 to touch
 —no one did
  
  the space 
 between never bridged 
  
 & no crossing of words 
 nothing to hang upon
 just eyes
 & the lack of hands
  
 I shook       scrambled
 screamed awake
  
 & lanced your core
 to let the poison out
  
  
 
  
 ANGELYSTORES
 In Welsh, “recording angel” or “evangelist”, feminized. For further information, please see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llangernyw_Yew
  
 Your name is written in me,
 runs through me like sap, or blood.
  
 Midnights are difficult.
 Words rise up unbidden,
 unwanted, our whole history,
 intertwined like vines, shouted
 into autumnshadow air.
  
 I remember how your hands
 reduced me to vowels.
 How we stood, defied
 the witching hours.
  
 No more. No more.
 The bells toll;
 the trees speak;
 I cry your name like a dead gospel
 whose time has gone.