Capture Poem by Oliver Roberts

In the darkness
a door
opened.

Awakened
from a dream,
I was startled to hear
that it was raining.
Drops roared on the roof,
like the sound
of rough canvas
painted completely black.
Lightning stabbed
the sky
and convulsed through windows,
underneath eyelids.
Sometimes, the wind.
Sometimes. Sometimes.
Sometimes.
I could hear the streets
awash with discarded jerseys,
torrents
of naked water, primal, uncouth,
rushing unchecked through
the night.
I closed my eyes.

Suddenly a smell,
coming
from the door
that opened me.
The scent splintered
until it spread
like an intricate parasol.
The rain ran and kicked
and spat and vandalised
sacred nocturnes.
Closer to me,
the new scent
reached my face
until I felt it
rebound off my breath.
A faded glass stopper
opened a bottle
full of shadows,
blades of grass
left muddy ground.
A gutter overflowed,
the sound
of a pile of clothes
collapsing.
Then a soft fruit,
warm from the sun,
was squashed between
misted glass.
It was the sound
of a kiss
as it dropped
from your mouth
into mine.

Outside,
on the pavement
and in the trees,
the rain repeated
the sound
over
and
over
until eventually
it, too,
slept.