The Morning

We are not the curious children
Of last night’s play.
All colours have faded.
And laughter now muted,
Hardened into vague and bitter smells and tastes.

Soft melting flesh to cool indifference.
Candle’s heat to morning’s grey chill.
We lie awake as strangers,
Heads heavy upon the soft, swollen bellies of green pillows.

Amid nervous, shadowed doubts,
Mottled moods creep across half turned faces,
Frozen with the failure of escaping this desperate moment.

In a scalding and shifting mirror
Of hasty black coffee and cruel exposing light
We move closer to a shared memory,
But remain wooden within tense armour of confused emotion.

I have no courage to leave.
You have no courage to ask;
And so we return to desire,
And care not the reason why.