Emily bell

Pupil

The sky is unbearable tonight:
a beautiful wash of tumbled clouds 
and winking moon.
I loathe it like burning 
(and I never understood how the moon could be
like a boat tossed on a cloudy sea, either);

the jagged, injured face rests just so tonight,
a drowning mother disappearing
into blotted ink,
blazing as she goes. 
So I force myself to think of hope,
of other nights under the same sky

and instead I dream of wet eyelids,
blinking together from opposite shores 
to protect that fierce
unnameable
vacancy
in the centre of a cloud-tossed sea.

Kiss

And so, you move on.
You, not me;
I’m trapped in the sleeplessness of love, 
And the aches of disappointment 
Rattle my bones and clench my teeth

Until I grind myself away to nothing with loving you,
Spitting bloody stumps of adoration
Which fill my sink
our bed
my ravished head,
Until nothing is left but bright red abandonment
Running raw through barren loveless gums.