Coal Eyes

Tease out, the start of the new year and everyone, everywhere you look, is either hiding from windows or gassing down at their own reflections. While others.

While others are winning. With their visibility parkers and stripes of luminous glow.

Last night I took in all the stairs and steps. I stopped by your window and there, lamplit and glow, the spark from the silhouette of your lover in blue. Enflamed, the whole street. Gitaway there Frosty, I heard him say.

At the bottom of your steps though, I stood fast and imagined you in the few seconds you strode from doorway to doorway across the hall. My heart, it went thumpety thump. Your lover there, head to toe in blue.

The next thing I’m hiding keys in the old gas lamp at the top of your street. Fishing for mice and dead birds in those curious cellar holes. Staring out the patterns of mosaic that make paths to the front doors. Gazing the railings, the dots of iron, that pit the low of the half broken walls. Watching the terrace shape as it bends to the top of the street and curves right back down again. Frosty indeed.

Somewhere out the back, over the walls, past the black lay of the back yards, the best of the canal. We used to go there sometimes. Back in time for tea.

Did we yearn while we toyed its perilous water? Did we imagine the high seas as it gave up its shopping trolleys and certain sized boots? Did we sigh askew when we cast our lines over the wrought iron bridge? Did we follow it through glade and valley in search of something new?

From your house here you can almost hear the splash of canal. Or at least guess just where it is. It must, I am sure, keep you awake at night. All those barges and noisy things. A seatbelt by your bed. A lifebelt, I mean.

Frosty? I’ll give him fucking Frosty.