Static

With my jumper half over my head

I hear your sclerotic apology,

The but-stutters stacking disdain

On top of apoplexy.

The susurrations of polyester and blood,

Not sufficient to silence you,

At least baffle your schtick

And I linger, arms up, blindfolded,

Receptive, or it must look like it,

Because you don’t stop repeating yourself.

Filamented detestation pricks against my cheek,

A transmission, so it seems,

From your spittle-steeped tongue

To the skin of my face,

Utter shit translated into haptic fizz

By fleece and vellus hair and hate

Red tinted and simmering.

I could stay here, inside my jumper,

Wait for you to splutter out,

Accept there is a tacit mismatch now

Between us.

But I keep schtum, listen

To the plasticity of what is right,

In which circumstance,

For each of us to snatch what we might be permitted.

To how my shock, my hurt, is a stick I beat you with,

You, victim of your own tenacity,

Because you won’t surrender this,

Whatever this is, between us.

I keep quiet, push my head through,

Hear the crackling as the light arrives,

And smooth my bristled tresses.