Wednesday 9 August 2017

How easy it is

How easy it is 
To hold your hand,
and talk of love.

Not the love
thrown as accusation
Or sharp as a cat's claw
that catches on my clothes
And is hard to shift
(as loose threads are never
entirely smoothed away)

But instead love as
the touch on a shoulder
A shy hello at a bus stop 
A father hearing 
'Your son is doing well'
The fleeting permanence 
of a footprint in plaster
A reassuring glance,
and the way I count your freckles 
or the pebbles on a beach
(the result is just the same)
The tilt of the heart 
like waves rolling over the horizon
to let the next, and the next, and the next
roll in behind

I hold your hand,
and talk of love,
and how easy it is.