Protection Spell for a Lover
You take out the car on a wet night,
and my mind runs wild. Drunks. Black ice.
A body in ribbons at the side of the road. I tell you,
Be careful. What I mean is, I love you,
don't leave. I want you warm and complaining.
The grout between the bathroom tiles is chipping;
the damp in the kitchen has wrecked the salt. I list
each means of your unmaking, and so the dog
is muzzled, leaves you breathing. No sharp turn
on two wheels. No error in guiding the articulated truck.
I give you cancer, rupture your appendix. I make you
allergic to bees. There have been close calls:
I count them like rosary beads, thumb our luck.
The time we aqua-planed on a sheet of light. The time
the bite of your clutch failed in the Peaks. Love
outlives the lover, yes, but I don't want to be
left back. I hold the curtain, fog the glass. With
stroke. With motorbike. With heart attack.