Sleep Walking (to my son)

He curls
into the arch of my body,
a tiny refugee
from the darkness of his room.
My hands clasp
over his smooth naked chest,
over ribs like chicken bones,
thin and crisp,
a fragile cage
for a growing heart.
He curls foetus-like
pressed into my belly;
I lose myself
to his sense of my size,
and for the rest of the night
he makes a womb of my love.

In Rented Rooms

We breathe the stale rented air
of decaying bed-sits,
with rented locks and keys,
rented sinks and bed-springs.
We fester, as jaded and spent
as the weather-beaten paintwork.

There is never silence, always the muffled voices
of second-hand TVs and idolised CDs,
and the weary footsteps of strangers who stagger
up the rented stairs and rented halls.

The post is a mixture
of long gone strangers
and the stress of bills,
missing giro cheques
and flyers promising excellent work
on our declining rented windows.

The landlord calls at unexpected hours,
with his own set of keys and reasons to snoop,
he fakes concern for the peeling walls
and thinning floors
as he empties the coins from the meters.

Our idle hands are helpless,
powerless to repair
the neglect of our impoverished lives.

Needle

The needle point is a black hole,
compressed, dense,
where nothing escapes.

Where time and light
and every known law of science
is lost to the reduction of space.

And through the hole
flows a jet of heaven
as transparent as a child's lie,