Nathan AM Almeida

[17 September 2019]

I have already seen you, painted
large on the canvas in my mind, seen
your skin imprinted with bedsheet
roadmaps and stubble pinprick
constellations. I kiss the back of your
neck and the fog rolls in through the
open bedroom window, swirling
around the sheer curtains and
spilling onto the duvet and the t-shirt
and the copy of Homer gathered
up in a heap at the foot of the
bed. I have seen you in
motion, in the March clouds
and the April rainstorms and the ebb and
flow of the wilds and fortunes, seen you
coloured in red and yellow and gold
and brown and green and scarlet, and
in the greys and whites. Your name
dances on my tongue and slides
down my throat and nestles deep
inside me, a host, a seed, a voluntary surrender
of one good for the hope of something
greater than I have yet known. The veil
is thin here, and sometimes I can see through
it entirely. I have seen you in the evenings,
fire and whisky and bread and wine and
water, the same song whistled
between pursed lips, lying in the darkening night and
listening to the air move till the tide pulls out
and all the lights go out.