Cover

Life’s what you make it
sang Talk Talk (1986) and
most recently Placebo
(2016). Both bands also
state that beauty is
naked. I get it, I
mean, it takes me,
back, to our little room,
in the middle of a night,
which is every night,
moonlit by a moon,
which is the only,
moon we’ve got, when
your skin, was so reflective,
like a silver river revea

ling my longing,
for you, it struck a desire
in me, from which
I may never recover.
For I am not without
a major mistake
of my own, my lemon,
peach, golden and blood autumn
leaves of tenderness
and seasonal tempering
and calamitous temperaments,
my mistake is
I write with my legs
and run away from most
intimacies on my hands
like a monkey
showing off
to his friends,
but when
monkey
slips

and when
monkey falls

into the fountain of ink
and climbs out
gasping with fear and delight
and begins rolling
on outstretched rice
paper the monkey’s

human scoring
tells story
of loneliness

while monkey’s
wilderness
tells story of
growth

tall growth

again and again

on the roofs of
London skyscrapers.