After Those Who Mean It - Laura Stevenson

Eden sees you leaving

Covered up and grieving

Doubled-over teeming

With parasites and hives

And though it’s ever freeing

Patterning your breathing

After those who mean it

And do it to survive

Edge away my sweet machine

Churn over and repeat

To keep you here with me

Motor rumble over

Under me and through me

It’s as if you knew me

It’s as if you knew me

And even though it’s briefly

And though it’s not completely

I can hear you reading

Reading me to sleep

And oh the water’s heading into me

I’ve left out a lot of things

Hung like trophies stolen in defeat

I watch you wait for me