At first we were just two bodies, sleek with sweat, bronzed in the aftermath of sex,
pressed into a single bed, glowing like two pearly fish cast on a tray of ice. I traced
your veins drawn hotly to the surface of paper skin, near-legible but not quite,
we lay like letters in envelopes begging to be torn open. Gutting a fish and slicing
a letter are symmetrical acts of violence and intimacy. This was the beginning
when it was all outline, no fixed shape but some direction surely, reaching
for one another through the not-sleep. Then it was flesh filling the outline like fruit
ballooning on a branch, an expanding lung that tugs sweetness from the air until it falls.
It seems obvious now that love is a process of closing things: doors quietly in the night,
wounds with rough stitches, even the river sealed above our heads, slick as an eyelid
as we tore off our clothes and jumped into silt rising. The flowers on the table do not close,
they open and then they die. Nowness shudders towards us,
open-mouthed.
pressed into a single bed, glowing like two pearly fish cast on a tray of ice. I traced
your veins drawn hotly to the surface of paper skin, near-legible but not quite,
we lay like letters in envelopes begging to be torn open. Gutting a fish and slicing
a letter are symmetrical acts of violence and intimacy. This was the beginning
when it was all outline, no fixed shape but some direction surely, reaching
for one another through the not-sleep. Then it was flesh filling the outline like fruit
ballooning on a branch, an expanding lung that tugs sweetness from the air until it falls.
It seems obvious now that love is a process of closing things: doors quietly in the night,
wounds with rough stitches, even the river sealed above our heads, slick as an eyelid
as we tore off our clothes and jumped into silt rising. The flowers on the table do not close,
they open and then they die. Nowness shudders towards us,
open-mouthed.
Imogen lives in a haunted house in Bristol. She loves swimming and writes poems. Her instagram is @omogenisborne and she blogs about books over at @books4hotnerds.