She threw gravel at the bedroom window, 

crept smoke-soft across the lawn

to carve a new country from moonlight, bone,

scale fur-dark telegraph poles – or were they Monkey trees?

Their evolution of touch: hair to breath, fingers finding palms,

cradling feather-silent, uncensored sparks

they built a dome beneath the holly,

innards glowing as captured fireflies.

Then back the way she came –

pedalling hard six miles through nightgown dark,

her rear bike light blushed into night air

an enlarged heart stampeded inside a school winter coat.

Through egg-shell house she threaded her way,

petal-flushed skin curling. She ebbed to single bed,

snowflakes were silently unfurling,

on tarpaulin-turned ceiling burned a name in stars.