You Get Home

After letting the front door read your palm and tell you your fortune
After waltzing with the flagstones and
Ignoring the calls of cats who swear they have never been fed
After the magpie salute, the seagull chorus
After the fleeing foxes

After drinking in the sour shop lights and the sugar-dusted windows
Passing by the imagined homes biting into the sky
After the signature seaweed scent, the sleeping petrol pumps and singing silver leaves
After the ghost of the dog you hit here years ago and never found
After your butterfly friend’s disastrous summer job
After his home that is not your home that is not his home
After the charity shop with anxiety hanging on every rack

After the empty pub with no job for you, lass
After the empty pockets in silent open-mouth screams
After the cold gel of the doctors office, promising that numbing the pain is the best option
After the house full of kisses like bad first drafts
Tasting of cider and strawberry laces
After the double bed
Breathless and sleepless
One either side
Refusing to ask the question

After the student flat with tears in the brickwork
After the computer suite where the words were gifted to you
And the theatre foyer where you gave them back
After the square dressed in a fishnet vest and fingerless gloves
After the poetry basement where you are christened Zaddy

After their fingers fit yours
Like the keys you used to grab on dark walks
After they lift their arm
And you snuggle in against their warm
After their cheek becomes your roof
And your sighs become the house settling