Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Sally Jenkinson

print this page

Can’t not be yours


Every kiss,
every soft sunk tooth
into not-your-lip,
every slip of my tongue
behind other ears
dampens and shushes my fears
that there is too much of you.

I am small in word and deed,
and I need.

Because it might make my knees buckle,
just watching you yawn.
Because you might just have tattoos
from before I was born.
Because on those nights when
nightmares frighten,
and one bad dream comes bursting
 sweaty and blood thirsty
from the belly of the last,
nothing
nothing
makes me feel safer than you.
Because I would set myself on fire
to show you a light at the end of a tunnel,

and I already knew
that I couldn’t own you.
I couldn’t spread myself
over all of your years and befores,
but I can’t not be yours.

I thought my resolve was firmly knotted
I didn’t mean to find myself
seriously
deliriously
deleteriously
besotted.
So,

every kiss,
and every soft sunk tooth
into not-your-lip,
every slip of my tongue
behind other ears
steal a tiny morsel from my fears
that there is too little of me.

 

Page(s) 37-38

Back to top