Impotence

Let’s swirl lust’s lees,
gaze tipsy and morose
at the gritty residue
of half forgotten trysts
in student bedsits.
Let’s stub desire
smoked to the tip in
pub ashtrays, butts
jostling with unemptied others,
fag-ends, tarry gossip.
We’ll tread mud
and guilt across the carpet,
and put our dirty feet up,
unthinking, unthought,
unimagined.
And I have cut a summer rose
and brought it you
to gently put in water til its
petals fall and fecund
perfume fades. This thing
is never done; it
leaves us, moving on into the
dark, trailing the silence
that we have not heard
since blood and laughter
woke us in the womb.