The Anemone

The Anemone

My anemone heart is closed to the dusty, bloodlust desert, 

It’s tendrils tightly furled. 

 ‘Don’t breathe that dead air’, it whispers, 

Shrinking from a toxic touch.

 I feel it swim in the

Reservoirs of my eyes, windows so damned dull,

Opaque still nobody knows it’s there

For all to see. Paned with iron.

My soul’s clamped in, clammed up,

I shrink away from a clammy hot touch. 

It buries itself in itself, 

Bares itself only

With a laugh

 So hearty

That the meaning is stifled. 

An ocean lies over me, one great droplet,

Magnifying and distorting 

The sky that is so dry

On the other side.

Under here,

Looking up at everything

There’s oxygen that can’t be found in air. 

I watch as,

Drifting through oil smoke clouds,

The moon hangs upside down,

Too large,

Kissing the horizon. 

Preserved in my watery paperweight,

Those crimsoned tendrils wave mockingly, 

 And recoil

As the hands and hearts of others

Reach through and puncture that perfect surface,

Leaving trails of grit

And other places

On the doorstep of my world.