If I am the grass and you the breeze, blow through me.

If I am the rose and you the bird, then woo me.

If you are the rhyme and I the refrain, don’t hang

on my lips, come and I’ll come too when you cue me.

If yours is the iron fist in the velvet glove

when the arrow flies, the heart is pierced, tattoo me.

If mine is the venomous tongue, the serpent’s tail,

charmer, use your charm, weave a spell and subdue me.

If I am the laurel that wreathes your brow, you are

the arms around my bark, arms that never knew me.

Oh would that I were bark! So old and still in leaf.

And you, dropping in my shade, dew to bedew me!

What shape should I take to marry your own, have you –

hawk to my shadow, moth to my flame – pursue me?

If I rise in the east as you die in the west,

die for my sake, my love, every night renew me.

If, when it ends, we are just good friends, be my Friend,

muse, brother and guide, Shamsuddin to my Rumi.

Be heaven and earth to me and I’ll be twice the me

I am, if only half the world you are to me.

We get up at four, sticky from sleep,

                                    so Colin can get to the market.

When he has gone, I realise it’s raining.

The tube of indigo watercolour is almost empty

which shows how bad the weather has been this summer.

At Waterloo Station, the platform indicators flap and ruffle.

Trains leave and arrive. At home, email piles up silently

like snow. In town it’s so hot, the smell of waffles

                                    fills every crevice.

Storms can sour milk, but ours is always cool and sweet.

Colin comes back, his yellow fleece soaked. He strides up

                                    and down the lounge,

electricity clicking like silver castanets from his fingers.

My paperbacks rustle as he goes by. Soon it will be Autumn.

We go to bed at nine, diving into sleep in half-light,

                                    so Colin can get to the market.