The Lie Poem by Oliver Roberts

Dusk passes gently over you,
wayward woman of my bed, ache of my heart.
You made me promise that I’d sleep.
I whispered that I would wait inside you until sunrise,
I said I would remain part of the story we’d told;
the final page about victorious heroes and sweat entwined.

But instead I am here, naked at my desk, perfecting you.
I have keys beneath my fingers, letters to rearrange my infatuation,
I have words ready to be set alight and burnt into your skin.
Your old soul, your new and supple bones, the sea in your eyes –
these are things I can only reach when you’re not looking,
and so I touch them now in this quiet room that smells of our kisses.

With your lying there, a noise comes off your body like a spray,
the hidden sound of the inside of a shadow or a rubbed pearl.
I wait and listen and write, and your delicate fury clatters in my veins.
I form sentences with the same fingers that have traced your secret sinews,
with the hands that know how your breasts plunge and part like wet wings.
When I’m done I’ll fulfil my promise and return to my place inside your folds,
and in the morning, as always, I’ll fail to conceal in my face what I see is new in yours.