That forbidden kiss was just the start; my thirsty love, your longing heart. I pulled you close, you took me in, we filled the time with lips and skin. If we grew wings, free and blue – we damn near did, we damn near flew – d’ya reckon then we’d be okay, would you take my hand and fly away? Or are you still tethered, as well as feathered, and clipped by indecision? Cos I for one was born to fly, and won’t rot my heart in prison.

We were happy once to make-believe, both looking for a reason to do just as we pleased. But who’d have thought the lovers would let their hearts concede, fall victim to each others’ words, and watch their promise bleed?

Steal my beats and rhythms and stow them in your silver buckets, chock full of suiters, kept on ice beside champagne and French white wine to keep us all intoxicated, falling at your feet, for we are drunk, and have lost our own; without our legs we cannot stand, but without our hearts we cannot live, so we leave them in your capable hands, to prod and poke, stab or stroke, however you desire, ‘cause open surgery costs a bomb, and our love has since retired.

Amazing how the growls of thunder crush and shake my fizzy dreams, pull back the ring and fire their jets of consciousness, head-to-head with lightning, fighting, biting, gnashing and gnarling, in a blinding confrontation. The night, meanwhile, in terror of war, hugs its tail beneath the bed and whimpers.

That midnight we spoke of, and marvelled at its clothed array, it looks so timid in the eyes of nocturnals, who bake their silver skins in moonlight, and sew their seeds amidst the dew to farm a golden promise and harvest us a fiery dawn that breaks atop unrested eyes like stars on their horizons, whose heavy lids and padded sheets can’t hide the glare of morning.

Our tale begun the seventh sun, forever well, forever young, the raspy tunes of poison sung, and hungry thoughts see logic hung, begun, begun, the sex and sun that clasped the air the fire had hung, and through the cries the ashes sung: forever well, forever young.