on the roof of an old pub / peeling red

kissed you in dalston when the pool hall lost

its alcohol license / sat in the park
low roofs in sunny rain and hail
if we eat brambles / a sting in my lip
a ring through my nose / fruit by the road
a fume in my throat / learn to inhale
step-by-step / where the rails bent in
getting high / hold my jumper
in the middle solar flares
summer so faint / i love being ill
and somebody bought the pub out
a cross in the window ink
scrubs / fields in the dark and daylight
grass with summer flu
in rain they wouldnt call the match of
our new house fell into the garden
we covered her up and burnt her.
it was the least

*
if i started again
if the day starts open air / my legs in front
of the pubs name, a flat terrace
on your back / a plane went past once
on the roof of our old pub
all those children with biblical names
a long time when we last spoke
and if our old enemies die it doesnt stop
1

the thunder was meant to break today

a rotten thumb from the pin-pricks
warm water / my inhaler compresses //
exhales / blackberry jam full of exhaust
beneath us the roof buckles & spokes

*
they dug the foundations out
for copper & gold
my mine drains colours of backpacks
my boots like i poured beer down my chest & it
deposited, waited for years
post-alby/anglia/the names we give
and believe the bay burnt gold
a blue clif / all buildings on legs overbalance
where the damp sucked up
and was intimate
all wells get too wet once
like when we kiss for too much
they bet on us / x in the middle of us
the bronzer you rolled over my shoulders
picks up red from the clouds / a land so far north
it sticks to the sky

*
the mine fell into itself
blankets for us behind the bar
we fell asleep to dead screens
in bed a tremor / a plate in the sea
a blonde glass held up once
the ground / radio / raise the roof
three layers of tarpaulin / knock-of barbour jackets
2

the pinch of your cheeks is important to me

bricks instead of back wheels
out of which country?
a landslide in the other direction.
a hole in the ice spurts / freezes a coastline.
photos of our bare legs in summer.
what we burn for food

*
if we built a cubby / a winter hut
a room on top of the pub, no real light
(plasma
mucus myst gelatin)
just ghost light / LEDs / a booklamp
all the barrels split by seawater / my hem so filthy
watching telly with the music taken out
eat the end of my plaits / to take the salt
away we pushed a pound down inside my cheek
theres no give when i bite
and when we scrape the salt of the stones
to get at the deep lakes / what holds
a blast in our home

*
by the sea in winter so clear the wind
throws me against windows / splits stones
if heaven was a beach and we let ourselves be washed
against its flintiest parts
our elbows are flintlock / dull sparks, no steam
here we burnt the pier down until it fell into the sea
3

and when they rebuilt her we tore her down

we covered her up with bedsheets & topsoil
the half-sized billboards / psychics in wigs
kiss me like you mean it like you mean
i hated this fucking house / my comfy bed
and it is very cold today

*
we left the sign up
all summer youd pulled the shutters
we were stufed inside
the smell / those rotten children
cracked gameboy screens / when the church became
a library the ground wasnt holy anymore
a penny baked into the dough.
and the graves / the sash windows
your molars fell back in
a blonde beer from the east coast
& the grey strips of pork we burnt
for the buns / bbqd in irn bru
if i came across the canal to you
in the dark / we stripped my old phone
and kept its case for stickers & charms
that lit up when we were already

*
remember bad lines / the crust
broke & the gravy clotted
the playground fell in on top of the bomb shelter

somebody tell me how to go back

pink ropes on the towpath / the shallow side of the lock
they designed a new school on the playing field
undergrads climb out of their windows
the river hums underground / treats for v-e day
singing / a name in the bricks at their backs
sick when i look up
a speck
from the top of our houseboat water
rises / paths narrow for us & the nettles
high in the hills / another country
bottles & four knees on the porch roof

*
pufy roses on the front wall
our house was the last one left
lawyer on a camp-bed / electric blankets
half a wall next door / a fist went through
between legal fees & a freehold
the brewery was interested
mould inside the barrels grows
a face / names / slips from the cellar
as it falls in & takes us down
an hour full of diagrams
driving back through welwyn gardens
the roads were dammed, re-routed
past where our flowerbeds were
the barrels had gone of
notes of splint & rot
sitting where the attic had been
5

two pufs of the inhaler, a catch / a cold

*
the towpath doesnt make the canal
a billboard on the railway bridge
the sign creaks in wind / your knees
dug with your hands in the riverbed
there will come a train / super famicom sky
purple your face in red at dawn
the weather is scratched, re-routed
to take us away / an empty engine behind
fifty years ago a new estate / i remember when
an underground river / a scratched out shed
a coastal line they tore out / a fishs mouth
spitting blood through the split
all the buses out of service / an old station house
the fat radio still plugged in

*
on the roof terrace red bricks / elbows raw
three stories / the door below cracks
tops riding up / if we stay here / low
countries we dream of talking in
if i started again
they tore down the house next door
and we tapped on our glasses
they let our treehouse fall into the river
we slept under a groundsheet
sold the freehold for legal fees
6

*
we threw peach stones
hoped that the street beneath us had died
we could rust where we fell / an old pub sign
if the first day came again / a full tap
its too much to say we fell in
lace so delicate you have to wear a slip underneath
they pushed the terraces into the water mains
nothing left to cut / a filthy hedgerow
when i put my hand in i bring out juice
& rot / my knuckles a prickle
the town we dreamt woke / a respawned map
broke the buildings from each other
we let the windows fall / in love
your cheek when a phone is about to go
if i started
so many old names / if you share my inhalers
last two pufs / a heart / a distillery experience.
we let them burn the derelicts for clearance
a rotten borough / holding sheets over us
rains full of clay / running just clear
of the overgrown gardens
this row of houses fell into the sea