The days burnt down to medlar branches
the colour of hands, no longer killing time
thrashing nettles in the derelict orchard,
you and me, my brother, finishing
your stories of detective racers, and werewolf thieves,
the interdimensional girls, the mirror-maker
turned vampire hunter, the scrieving cedars
winking across our languages, ready to type,
swapping input like it was, one idea between two
in the parallaxing flash of binary stars.
Helixes in isolation, growing lank
into old futures, as black holes eat slow matter.
Of a day you named a Hawk T-1 by sound alone
in the morning rays, the plane slipping
the knot of the Worcestershire clouds,
crackling into the chorus of crow squawks,
the weathervane, weak in the wind,
the stopwatch tick of the electric fence.
Another noon, the disused chicken hutch
on fire as if crashed into the planet
with you, its surviving pilot,
strutting away from the blast,
the secret of your x-wing origins
charred out of all recognition.
And now I often mean to phone and say
how at night, those stories you wrote still shine
around my head like heat, like light rays,
like radio waves, like radiation –
how to put it, off every surface
moon-bright echoes, electric.
First published in 'Lift', Tall Lighthouse, 2013