A Golden Shovel after‘Party Piece’ by Brian Patten
let’s
forget it how we cut flares like night steamers the way we can clip and unclip
each other’s bright wires worm our currents down to earth our
tongues cracked static all over chewing our minds
eyes open lips seizing fluoride &
glinting like meat let
me forget the colour behind your teeth how you tumble
open your mouth and free
your humours like acid in a washing machine cycle tight as ligaments let me lose the
mad
ache and spit of parabolic skin mangled
limbs and the after two milky crocodiles
soaking scumskinned on the calm of
the ceiling thinking how, with all the letters we pulled out of the soup in my sternum i dared to spell love
