Moving

I come to clear my flat,
to pack the small accumulation
of those few months when I existed here
with and without you.
Clothes, some pictures, saucepans,
books, just crammed, so much totter's
scourings, into carriers and boxes.

Like me this place is full of things
you touched and moved
and walking through the rooms you're here.

The dust I stir, your dead,
and now my second skin,
distills you in the corner of my eye,
thin and meagre in an empty jacket
slung across a chair.

You bulk the vacant bed and move beneath
the cover, smiling in that
certain way you did before you fingerprinted
me with your genetic code.
I fold you up and hold you
in sheets warmed by our friction,
impressed by us,
imprinted with your DNA,
which in your absence give elusive
birth to you and you and you.
You fill the room

and occupy me through your breath
exhaled in talk and love's sweet nothings,
passion's pant;

and in the bathroom form behind me
swim the mirror on my breath;
your hands across my chest,
your chin upon my shoulder
smiling like the cat that's got the cream.
I feel your kiss, absent as ever.

The latch click as I leave
a last reminder of that time
when once, as you left, I locked myself out.
Your worried look.
I thought that it was my turn now
to leave and lock you in.
Perverse as always you insist on coming too.

You're must in clothes
a tuneless hum in music,
a winey kiss when drinking
from a glass
a shape in sheets at night.