One Hundred and Thirteen - Middleman

Some days she’s an hourglass and I’m unfamiliar with mirrors

Looking in through a window I can’t see myself in.

As seconds tick away it’s her image to which I’m listening,

Desperate to be a grain of sand and pass through her existence.

Other days she’s a guitar I can’t play or even tune, with no strings,

And a resonance that swallows my acoustics.

Occasionally she’s a diabolo pirouetting on its end,

Walking like a tornado hoola-hooping gold-plated halo trends.

She carries the momentary taste of honeysuckle lipstick

On snug-fitting, full flavour, money-shot lips.

Her smile is a lesson in the anthropometrics of kissing

In ways the average man will span a lifetime without missing.

Most days she sheds great white smiles like snakeskin while shopping,

Stopping to pocket free cookies and extra shots in her coffee.

She’s a slow leaking flesh wound you can hold in your hands.

She speaks with a soft, French-caramel timbre

Of boutique-chiffon quality at everyday pricelessness,

Dressed in violent animal passion, with liquid pitch locks

That float like she’s underwater and dye the air almost Hitchcock:

Diluted oils on cartridge paper, leaving 3D maps you can’t switch off.

Her favourite feeling is the way rain plays telepathy

Her favourite sound is unbounded energy

Her favourite smell is momentary sanity

Her favourite shape is being attractive as gravity

Her favourite flavour is swimming pool chlorine

Her favourite number is one hundred and thirteen

Her favourite colour to paint in is transparency

And her favourite words to say no to are ‘will you marry me'.

She will warm you up

And then she’ll fight you off,

And leave you trapped enough

So you won’t hear another word,

You won’t hear another word

That she says.

I want to learn her by rote and still be surprised

When she holds the lump in my throat with that knife in her eyes.

She tells my life story in silence but still talks the talk

And raises money for confident conversation with a sponsored walk.

She donates a regular beat from her small-chamber left atrium

Precariously balanced on the edge of overt altruism.

She says what she wants and I take her at her word,

Manipulate the letters to form anagrams of thoughts I’ve overheard.

They sound like a barbershop quartet through a weeping saxophone

Staining eardrums previously dyed in monotone.

Most days she thinks I’m a monochrome joker card in bass relief,

Staring from my fixed position at her Technicolor masterpiece.

And she gets precious if I tread near her pretty painter feet,

Of course I won’t trample on them, but they need air to breathe.

So on days when I skate towards her she lays down gravel,

And I’ve tried to orbit her gorgeousness but I’m unable to travel.

I’ve memorised her delicate constellations of imperfections

For when I’m a little dejected and need something to reflect on.

And I keep bottles of her reflection in my medicine cabinet,

Between the plasters and the Prozac, for when I need something drastic.

She plucks stars from scarred skies to decorate self-raising cakes

That I have and eat, scrapes a knife full of space,

Spreads soft night over my toasted daydreams.

And I’ll never understand her but I know just what she means.

Her favourite feeling is the way rain plays telepathy

Her favourite sound is unbounded energy

Her favourite smell is momentary sanity

Her favourite shape is being attractive as gravity

Her favourite flavour is swimming pool chlorine

Her favourite number is one hundred and thirteen

Her favourite colour to paint in is transparency

And her favourite words to say no to are ‘will you marry me'.

She will warm you up

And then she’ll fight you off,

And leave you trapped enough

So you won’t hear another word,

You won’t hear another word

That she says.