U=Charminster Road

charminster road

nothing this important
should be this still
your bare black shoulders
happiness
in my headlight eyes

as Melanie sat
on the floor of seduction
crushing ice for the
jack daniels
the back of her lucid
shaved head spun me
to tears of lust

I felt boyish tremors
as somebody called
Nick Drake
lulled the smoke
into paisley patterns

and the stillness
between us seared
cauterised branded
stalled
on an agonising
point of fixed motion

charminster road
which never
travelled as my arms did
finding how her cocoa-
buttered skin redeemed me

she challenged me
to be as beautiful
as I knew I was
how
did she die without me
I never thanked her
never will