Give me the sound of love Not the flesh, nor the bones But the tone Whisper it slow Let the words drift On the wind’s tide and Settle like snow
Roll them round Your chattering teeth Then echo it loud So all else is drowned Yell it out, burst a lung Oh give me your love til you bite off your tongue
Beyond weak, she was now spelling it out for him, like a mother – holding the small fat hand of her first born, pushing the stubborn fingers around, as they clutched a pencil to shape the letters of his own name.
His name.
How many times had she said it now? Could she count how many times she had laughed it, asked it, stuttered and moaned it and even once – in the vacancy of quiet hours – called for it, loudly across an ocean of silence.
When it gets late, we watch Cops on TV, once all the rest have made their way to bed. Then you make cheese on toast, and I make tea – we feel inclined to sit up late, instead – and though our conversation is quite plain, you’ll show me something funny on your phone, and when we laugh our ribs vibrate with pain, as though at something we should have outgrown. At three or four o’clock we start to shrink; my tired mind begins to wonder whether you’ll think about us sitting here, in sync, when you and I no longer live together. For me, it’s that I’ll miss, though it seems trite – when we watch Cops together late at night.