poem

Christina Dunhill: commended Romance

There is the lovely fug of it, the cloak
to shake and swirl around yourself, disguise
a darker thought and slip into a haze
of otherness. Here’s how my mouth will make
its little nothings into wisps of smoke –
a ring, a ‘no’, a ‘yes’, an ‘oh’, a kiss.
There’s absolutely nothing to express.
Instead we stretch our silence like a lake,
breathe signals over it like children’s boats
that glide across, then wobbling, start to lean.
Ghost boats that start to show a flag, then hide:
they never make the crossing from our throats.
Your smoke and mine - our breath, our screen –
Is this enough mist to undress inside?

 

 

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