Northern Rain Mask

Northern Rain Mask

(for and after Gerard Rudolf)

Remember the first time I laid eyes on you?

Another cold afternoon.

You turning in widening circles

in that train station in Edinburgh.

Were you wearing black 

Pashmina

for a funeral?

Were my first words to you about weather?

Something mundane at least.

Did you say, You are very tall?

Did I reply, I lie about my height.

Did I fall in love with you there and then?

In all our brutal years together

we left each other nailed to walls;

gutted in so many houses,

disembowelled by sex.

I am sorry, for my part at least.

Your cruelty is your business.

We made so much rain between us,

with not so much as a tribal mask.

I am drinking latte in the place

where we first made plans

near your ex boyfriend’s flat.

Rain runs down the window.,

I am reading, ‘Orphaned Latitudes’.