St Davids

If like some nutter combing coast, I searched
for Stuff we'd left behind along the shore
and gathered it all up into a poem
for some other nutter to find once more

The poem might look like this: four teabags
and tin foil nicked from shelves, a pack
of CDs wedged with salty towels, one Crazy,
a heap of shells, some wood, a ruddy rack

of words that try too hard to re-
create creation, attempting to retain
moments like butterflies, whose beauty lies
in fleetingness: the transience of passing rain;

your brown eyes; iris-sparks bursting from the soil;
your hand in mine: moments that words would only spoil.

The Detective: II

He'd searched
for clues too many times
not to spot the signs.

The shimmering fishscale smile in her eyes
swooped to the surface of the iris-pond,
swirling like light on lilipads
was as clear a clue to him as any footprint

her new dress might as well have been a shred
of clothing caught on a rusty nail or hung
on the body; for her body, though unbloodied,
was the scene of the crime.

He didn't need hard evidence
to read the story right - the sight
of her soft back in bed
her shoulders turned to him
left him startled, suspicious, bereft-

enough clues to look back. So that when she left
with that other man he was already there,turning it
over in his mind, their bodies in the sack,the
broken love, the knife stuck
in the back.