When I caught him in the bar I didn't know him
till I saw his curious ring that was his mother's:
I'd erased his unlucky face, and thought it was
... somebody else. Glad I did the wrong thing,
still I left him there with my embarrassment.
I keep a spare torch for him in the closet:
the batteries are obsolete now, you can't get them.
Every good boy deserves favour, and that
includes me: doing unto others, doing good
by stealth, doing the vacuuming only when alone
because it isn't done to be seen working,
wanting to be a Wise Virgin. Ready when you are:
till then I have man-sized tissues by my lamp
and a flip-top bin to discharge them into.
If I were a qualified body electrician
I'd connect up our moments of weakness
and demonstrate how they point, they rub.
The hand, the screwdriver, the spark - we learn
insulation, and our fantasies wear condoms.
There's a candle for you under the bed,
come over and hide there some time.
Rubbing together like boy scouts can start up
blazes of inflammatory behaviour, every
lifesaving effort a worse liability.
I doubt if we'd manage the heart-shaped badge,
and I don't stay up reading the instruction manual.
For you I've put an oil can in the garage
and labelled it 'Danger'. You got a match?
No need to skin our desire, or clothe it with
tit bells to warn each other how to hurt.
Promise I won't write, if you won't read, and
I'll fix our weaknesses to glow without touching
till dawn comes up through a rubber window.
I want a torch to hand on ahead of me.
Go on: we shine from the sheer need of light.
