Ode to Somebody Else

Vagrancy often visits my doorstep
and talks and talks of
rivers of wine,
with spiced back alleys
and secular mountaintops.

Dark, slender women who suck
olives on the terrace;
midnight oceans
hushed behind the glass.

You beckon me onto a hazel boat
whilst lamenting your own soft-spoken
repertoire and politely criticising
my clumsy adjectives.

You are a boy who could
scrape poetry into battered sand
without a thought - a boy
whose coast was imprinted
onto your unsullied palms.

Inspired by the heavy stars;
the docks, and their purest doom.
The murk, the salt, the doors shut
closely behind us.

Vagrancy often leaves my home,
speaking in tongues, a twinkle
in his eye; fresh air in his
lungs.