APOLOGY TRIPTYCH

I’m sorry you thought I was flirting
with that girl on the dance floor
and leaving you out
demoting you from number one
of course you’re my number one
and isn’t that what dance is all about
—the cock and hen shuffle game—
the trouble is normally girls leave me well alone
but they see you’ve tested and kept me
and now they want to play

I’m sorry my heart doesn’t pump or roll over
in the presence of unnecessary pets
interior decoration
soft cheese children and cake
I’m sorry I don’t whip up a drama
or make extra tasks for myself
wasting my strength on circles of thought
and I’m not being sad in my man cave
I am happy and fulfilled with emptiness
so I’m sorry for being happy

I’m sorry I vomited into your daffodils
it’s the white wine that does it
the stuff I don’t really like
that was left over from the party
so I feel I have to finish it off
and it slips down so easily
like my hand down your dress but mostly in my fantasy
lifting my head like a blind person
the light dances like fairies on yellow waves
the taste fades in my mouth
not even bitterness remains

SOMETHINGS I WOULD LIKE TO DO TO YOU

I want to smear DNA all over you
huff ‘n puff and blow the petals of your dress
off

I want to clasp your knuckles till they turn
to skeleton and we’re dug up by archaeologists
fêted for the story of our coupled death

I want to kiss a mirror picture of you
one with a pretty smile a fresh pink blouse
painted lips wet with blue

while I circle you from behind
arms melted into waist
and I whisper “Guess who?”

I could suck the smell from you
write myself into you
put my tongue into the void

and taste
once more
your marmalade

let’s leave the stars and moon well out of this
and not regret a single thing
drifting in a salty pool of tears

floating
in a doomed afterglow
of bliss

Clive Donovan has three poetry collections, The Taste of Glass (Cinnamon Press, 2021), Wound Up With Love (Lapwing, 2022) and Movement of People (Dempsey & Windle, 2024), and is published in a wide variety of magazines including Acumen, Agenda, Crannóg, Popshot, Prole, and Stand. He lives in Totnes, Devon. Clive was a Pushcart and Forward Prize nominee for 2022’s best individual poems.