Reclamations

There is your handprint upon my skin,

red as the burning I felt

There's cigarettes still smoking in the ashtray

of your childhood home,

the VHS has been left in the garage

and the Nintendo on the floor

the cables are unorganised behind

as tangled as your hair.

The CD with the fondest memories has the most

fingerprints and cracks inside the case,

untouched for at least six years.

The tape recorder still has the songs

you made a year ago

and the film contains the memories we've both

forgotten and warped

the tapestry rug we spilled milk on as we strangled

- weakly punched over the remote,

the kitchen knives from the special offer set

can no longer cut butter. The window we sat out of

has rusted over and cannot open,

the garden has become over grown while the strings

of your guitar have snapped.

Untuned and unlit - sit across the table

and find the words between us difficult.

Orpheus looked back, anyway.

the dishes are stacking up / the shards of your old jar

cat hair on the sofa and sneeze every time we sit down,

the wild west frontier has passed us

on the midnight train. Don't cry, we've already died.

We won't reach Jupiter

and your guitar is in need of a replacement

you strum and I lose myself in the notes.

Your words are foreign on my tongue,

the literal transcribed into music / /

our drinks have become lukewarm

and there's no rush to replace them, afternoon laziness

clouding the window. Boombox in the corner,

still holding the cassette we forgot about.

the same way I wish my voice

wasn't as monotone as grating metal.

I wish my poetry was music to you

that you'll burn onto a cd and pass to a friend,

who will never give it back. It'll remain

in the walkman,

at the bottom of the drawer.

I'll be there,

waiting to sing your song with the same

reverence Patroclus looked to Achilles.