While you are away, my darling

While you are away, my darling, I stare into the
space in our rooms
And I take and I fill and I arrange particles of
air into rows
And columns and build a perfect image of you from feet to
face and I zoom
To each part I would like to tenderly kiss from
hair down to toes.

But kiss nothing.

While you are away, my darling, I lie on our bed
upon my side
And I imagine you are lying sweetly beside me
bowled-eyes meeting.
I imagine so, that I feel your presence and warmth
upon my thigh
Until, believing you are here, I reach out to
hold you tightly.

But hold nothing.

While you are away my darling, I play dangerously
with my mind.
It fills the voids with substance, with radiance, light:
fairy lights.
And it clouds my judgement by tricking my senses:
makes me blind.
Until I inflate it up ‘til it bursts once the bubble’s
far too tight.

And I’ve nothing.

When you return, my darling, I shall build for us
A hundred mattress high bed to set us aloft, apart
And, in your true form, we shall lie together
Content to be lying, meeting eye to eye, forever.

I’ll have everything.

---

Written for entry in The Bridport Prize, 2012