Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows His smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace He wanted to topple with his arms round her His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing His promises were the surgeon's gag In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs Her smiles were spider bites Her eyes wanted nothing to get away He wanted all future to cease Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop Their little cries fluttered into the curtains Her promises took the top off his skull His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway And their deep cries crawled over the floors Safe and sure forever and ever Off that moment's brink and into nothing His whispers were whips and jackboots In the morning they wore each other's face In their dreams their brains took each other hostage So he would lie still till she felt hungry Her embrace was an immense press He loved her and she loved him. He showed her how to make a love-knot His words were occupying armies Where the real world would never come He had no other appetite To print him into her bones She would get a brooch made of it She wanted him complete inside her Like an animal dragging a great trap He gripped her hard so that life Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves His vows pulled out all her sinews She bit him she gnawed him she sucked Should not drag her from that moment Her laughs were an assassin's attempts His looks were bullets daggers of revenge Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks Her vows put his eyes in formalin At the back of her secret drawer Their screams stuck in the wall Or everlasting or whatever there was His glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets