here is the first part of a poem i'm writing with ross sutherland about the difficulties of relationships between men and women. it's to be an exchange and i'll update it as more gets written.

1.
gut parkas

they make parkas from gut.
gut parkas. you are mine, inuit.
this warmth comes out of you
like street-lamps.
you're a forest and a dial-
for centuries we've been kissing,
presently.

your sleeping arms. i can't
decipher them. your mind
is dark scrub and the tribes
that hide within it. i can see
their torches and their
white-as-skulls. we are waiting
for buses and trains and trying to
get out. i cry 82% of the time.

when we fuck we're not there.
you give me haribo from a plastic bowl
and tell me i look like a squaw.
i get lost in the artex, it's a vortex.
your fez is all crooked-
we are compost, limes.

2.
bona dea

in museums you tell me of bona dea.
i nod and nod, the warder in my cleavage.
we talk about breaking up,
the tongue on a tooth, tonguing it.
you are moving to greenland, then
salem. i admit that to carry on
would be pointless. it's pritt stick.

your jaw makes me wistful.
i like your teeth on the left, a
bolt of light comes off them.
if you were a bonfire then i would
be around you like naked girls.
seppuku, you whisper
like it would get you out of this.
i lick a tissue and clean your
mouth up.

we're science fiction, but
if anyone looks we're rom-com.
i dream of you in antlers and skin,
in winklepickers, kapow.
the criminalistics prove it,
that cup with your saliva,
the fingerprints in my hair,
you're in it.

3.
wagon wheel

you have your lunch-box
with your wagon wheel.
you offer me some by the crater.
i press my nose up to the glass of you
and take a reading.
you are telling me how
things go. i'm
not listening.

you do maths on me, like
magic tricks. you pull a rabbit
out from my double-breasted,
it's a sure-fire winner.
i am in a world of sounds,
bright shouting. it's baltic.

i buy you glittens and dwarfodils.
you hit me with your spork.
i'm wearing jeggings and a coatigan,
half way there.
we're hybrid, spliced,
men of many moons-
through the january stabbings
we're ancient.