Previously on This Channel

Soft lattices had spoken,
had expired full of most
cloud-heavy
sealed speech,
a dribble to paint over,
they trap everything
but never judge,
their reticence, tacit
layer on layer
denied ancestors,
so the cots were righted
right enough,
without a grand-
mother’s tending,
we were misbegotten
to our advantage.

Air warps & trembles,
the extensive air
puckers: there is water
in the tap there, water
occupying reeled hose,
the floor will stay dry
through a flood’s upflow,
men at their kindest
sponged the tide
crossing cinder beds,
the generous women
filtered our un-
executed flits & blots,
no more need to go
to a pump in the yard.

I may not speak
your language, but at
late tea we joke,
take our busting bladders
to the water, clothes
are being washed,
the floor aswill.
Then I slip & shout
You’ve got to be taking
the piss, I’m soaked,
I’m more than upset,
I’m past containing.

But they were shadows —
by their density
amass new things,
not with disinterested
approach or style,
more their modus
operandi to make count,
though thorns & burrs
stick against a blind,
though their thick hair
gets confused.
Just as first snow
tipping branches,
holds the lost blossom,
just as first snow
variably falls late,
foam & microfibre
make erroneous
analogues but keep
faith with the swerving,
fittingly accumulate.

Tongues have laboured,
tongues have scrapped,
sets of verbal angles
strap the tread
with cross-ply,
measure tries to swipe
her sideways-looking
turn, oatmeal,
its congealed flap,
the whole company
gets jostled,
fleet shadows brush
at taps dripping
rustily, the drips freeze
clear as air. She:
don’t romanticise,
don’t thicken, stay
superfluous & unfit,
since it’s with fitting in
dams collapse,
drains retort.
Wring out sponges.
Launch disaster drill.
He: Unbelievable —
my tongue is stuck
to the roof, my feet
seem totally legless.

Not-so-clear-air applies
various filters,
mare’s tail, mackerel
shoal, alto-cumulus
we bump along,
take shelter under,
read wrong then
flee suddenly soaked.
Drops considered
pendant or sessile
draw their veil
drearily across the yard,
fountains sigh
drawing back to stems.
Beneath the watershed
a blue gown of air
wraps Guangzhou.
These lattices are not
originals, not one,
but piled on thick
overlay on overlay,
break with pressure
like a bruise
dribbling clear fluid,
rise again like shadows
spared antecedents.