inflammable

'Could you turn it down?' he says,

Looking up from his book-

'I love you, but not that much.'

And grins, lopsidedly, that grin I adore—

Secretly, far too much.

What can I do? 

The knobs are dysfunctional, the 

Gradation markings erased over time;

Once turned on, you just have to

Keep checking I won’t burn you.

Perhaps that’s why I keep warming to those 

Whose hearts are marked Non-flammable.

competition

I ought to be typing. 

The others, in the silence of the quiet study section,

Are vociferously typing. 

Power, F says, is everywhere, its roots creeping

Unseen into our psyches, freezing us so immobile

That our shoots only wave in the gales;

And little clicks in the silence

Are the sounds of sap creaking, sighing.

'Are you hunting for whatsapps upon the floor,
Or pings upon the stairs?
Worried that the beeps and cheeps and rings
Were muffled by the carpet hairs?
Is your inbox overflowing (yet empty)?
Your face in a glassy stare?
Are you searching for signs of love forgot
And finding ones that didn't care?'

Oyster Card

I remember the London buses
Like cheap postcards, fridge magnets and plastic models
—Pillarbox red and memorabilious.
I remember, on our free day off
From our carefully-chosen tour package
—Most places–least cost–'local' food—
we took a Red Bus tour.

I remember my father fumbling
with coins from that all-important belly-bag.
I remember the people behind us in queue
With blank faces. I remember
the shame—I could do this faster. I
don't remember the guilt that it was
His savings he was counting out, reduced to coins
And each one strange and precious.

I remember sitting upstairs in the drizzle,
Droplets obscuring the panes of the half-roof;
We still keep photographs of a glassy, dim London and
The freezing thrill of leaving
Our tourist dog-collars behind
at Trafalgar Square bus stop.

cravings

A soft ringing: the phone, somewhere under the blanket. Forget it. 

Ten minutes later, it rings again. She squirms, finds it grazing her thigh, shyly vibrating. 

It’s him, both him. It falls silent as she looks at it, thankfully. 

He hasn’t called in days; she has sallied forth every day 

Dressed to meet him by accident. She sees in him

Past lovers, her pattern. She feels she knows him,

Two brief conversations to the contrary failing to withstand. 

This will be all of them gone right. 

Or… at least she knows what she's getting into.

Or who.

But this afternoon, with the warm sunlight trapped in her doubly reinforced windows;

The wind of a carefree rebuff in her sails, making the leaves and shadows jump; 

The warmth of her intense body sliding against soft sheets

And the drowsiness after; the phone knows it doesn’t need answering.

There’s no call to arms more potent; 

Sweat shining, her depths in paroxysms

Of laughter.

The sink got clogged today. I airily said I would take care of it,
waved a nonchalant hand at my mother and spared her retches.
'No of course I won't lose my appetite.'

After breakfast, I returned with the plunger
But it only made little sucking noises and water slop-spurted out
from the little slit under the tap
Like the sink vomiting on me. At me.
Little things were floating around in the water,
not disgusting but ghosts of things disgusting.
I prodded deeper in the pipe with a straightened-out clotheshanger,
And roused greenish-black memories that drifted eerily in the clean water,
Returning to haunt those who had no concern for the plumber.

Pleasure provokes description; pain, analysis. 
Perhaps because I cannot explain why a thing was beautiful, 
or how it hurt.