LOVE

The other day a bomb exploded in my head.
It didn't make me dead,
In blues and multicolour hues it rainbowed out, I said
If I'm in love, why can't I be me?

I could have sheltered from a bomb
I could have run, but in my skull
The bomb would have run away with me,
And so it did.
If I'm in love
Why can't I be me?

I click her tittle-tattle,
Time
My strokings of her hair
And watch the colours of her eyes
Turn hazel
At the edge
And sea-green inside
Mustard by the pupil's side.
The sunset beams across the evening's still, and lights them up
And I'm still dead.
If I'm in love, why can't I be me?

I am a bull inside a china-shop
Choosing crockery
Crash! Crash! Crash!
Until the matador is met
And takes
Her, her, her
Sabre in her hand
And with it tickles me
Beneath the chin.
If I'm in love
Then it still tickles me.

Andrew Starling