Blackout

Toes are stubbed on the mysteries of guess
floor strewn mess, bed legs and chairs.
A search through rooms to find the tools for vision
becomes eddies of jerk and terror.
Fingers trace shapes to give them names
and the possibilities confuse.
Cold and cold.

Black has howl carved into it
an accident waiting as hands braille walls.
The table tests, our last drinks
before you left knock the spill
if matches were there, they’re wet.
Silence is hunched, the switches off.
Stars are pitched.

Finger fumble, toe crawl across memory
used as car lights for direction,
sweep places for torch and battery.
Without the background noise
night is a pure
sheer as crow
sheen of feather that defines itself.

Alone is space.
The vacancies in heat
are now a chilled lament.
Bed a journey of unrelated clothes.
I lie in my own need
buried in the unknown.
And cold and cold.