Say Anything
I cannot make love to you right now
the moon glows too bright on my back
the sallow beams tickle my eyelids
it cools and burns in all the wrong spots
I cannot focus with all that going on
I cannot make love to you right now
the sea so near to us
is simply too loud
whistling and bending its turquoise waters
back and back and forth and rolling, rolling
it’s giving me a headache
or the likeness of one
at the base of my skull
and eye sockets
I cannot make love to you right now
my joints are sore with the day’s walking
my jaw is sore from the talking
you had me do with those people at our adjoining table
sore also from the ribeye steak you had us share
(tough, so tough)
I cannot make love to you right now
the sheets are too rough in some places
and too softly kept in others
it makes me itchy and drowsy
and distracted and too calm
I cannot make love to you right now
your dress is fitted too tightly
I cannot work it loose
it’s like a straightjacket made of velvet
and money
(too much money)
I cannot make love to you right now
for when I look into your eyes
they are mirrors of a memory
in which are reflected back some other lover
like a stain
something soaked into a carpet or wallpaper
like a fear of something
an unspoken oath
I cannot make love to you right now
the air of salt
and seaweed is making my nostrils sting
and my stomach rumble
and my heart feel heavy
and lost
a pebble in the sands
of your skin.
Equinox
I am not the mere sum of my parts
I yearn for more than this fragile body
Sat by destiny’s river
The waters of life flowing
The stones crouched like old men
The grass sweet with innocence
A smile is on the sun’s rays
Love on that brown horizon
I turn the book’s page and...
Drowned in Love
I am not raw
or burnt with love
I am softened
humbled
meekened
like I have been broiled
in love’s little oven
I have passion for a phantasm
a nothing
a ghostling
the feeling of a woman
and yet she remains
a faded picture on desire’s wall
she is like the gold of a temple
laid out on a bed
like the flesh of a peach
between my lips and teeth
like the taste of sweat
umami on a wandering tongue
smooth like marble
on a freshly shaved cheek
buoyant like joy
in a man-child heart
I am drowned in love
the nicest death of them all.
Harris Coverley was nominated for the 2020 Rhysling Award and is a member of the Weird Poets Society. He has had verse most recently accepted for Polu Texni, Spectral Realms, Flying Fox Flash, Scifaikuest, View From Atlantis, Ordinary Madness, 5-7-5 Haiku Journal, and Better Than Starbucks, amongst many others. He lives in Manchester, England
