Poem for A (2014)

I sit with you and watch you smoke cigarettes in front of me

you take photographs   but not here        not of me

I didn’t ask for sugar in my coffee   but I didn’t return it either

when the bus leaves you will be on it   when the sky opens you will be beneath it

one day in the future we will agree on something

the first time we met        the last time we will kiss 

but these are kept safe between us 

there is icing on the carrot cake and I let you finish it after you tell me 

it is the only thing you have eaten so far today

the five words of overheard French you translate to me make me love you even more

though they are not beautiful words

your sketches remain upside down in my notebook   your name

written across every page