L. Poem by Annie Jackson

‘L Dorado! ’
I have greeted her.
Her lips flicker:
her eyes remain –
the flat line of a hospital,
a pj, worn, and best divested.

‘I bought you flowers’………………………………The ball lodged in my court
‘Pansies, they’re my favourites’………………………………………....Ten – 0
‘You always were a queer sod’……………………………Back-handed volley
‘Gay, they have smiling faces.’………………….Fault ……………….................
‘Projection, ’ you say.……………………………………………....Advantage L.

……………………………………....Dinner
…………………………………[Pansies in vase.
………………………………Plates cleared away.]


‘They’re yellow. Sunny. Dorado means golden, you know.’
I use my tennis elbow
for one last overhead smash
and tease the flaxen hair.
A Meeting of Mouths –
I hang up my whites –
the ball got lost in the netting somewhere.

‘I brought Alien’
The couch accommodates us.
Gulp of red wine –
served with
clam on a bed of tight thigh.
My index finger reaches the ladder that’s there
and makes it bigger......purposely.

‘Love, ’ beneath a knitted brow.
‘Yes, L? ’
Her name looms like a sentence
without doing her justice.
She could be called ‘A’
to stand, instead, for:
a swing, a slide, a ladder, a wigwam, a house, first.

Six degrees of separation
between us
not ninety,
not the vertex of a square
not a bungee jump......exactly.

A rollercoaster,
A constellation:
I am the crossbow,
she is the Archer.

‘Is the hole sufficient, now? ’
I have welded our hands
when a ‘scary part’ called for it.
I rest my head in the nape of her neck
and settle into the cliché.

Vertical melts – horizontal.