Him on her

agápē

apples, little earths
of laughtered kisses
of words that tickle
of giggle flesh
deep red and green
or change in colour
from one to the other
windfall
or pick one

Your apricots, peaches
and nectarines
a predatory sweetness
invites the unwary
as you feel slightly soft
and pull away easily

blackcurrant berries
swell to full size and turn
a shiny blue-black

incise deep past
the mantel to core
molten with sweet

juice oozes
over your tongue
out of the flesh
out of the month
through holes in the bones
life agape

Picked Apple, woodbride,
 you tend gardens with skill,
 devoted to orchards’ care,
 love fields and branches
laden with ripe apples,

 carry a curved pruning knife,
 cut back scraggy growth,
 lop limbs spread too far,
 split bark, insert a graft,
 provide sap from different stock
 for trees bairns.

 Will not  suffer them being parched, waters twining tendrils o’ their thirsty root. This is your love, your passion,
 no need of lust. Workaholic, closed yourself off in an orchard, posted a notice, ” No Men Allowed”.

Her on him

glance and you’re a scraggy girl darkened in denim,
 a bespectacled man in a ballooned jumper, honeyed farmer, shy hunter,
 mollusced fisherman.
 I wake up to a tupped shepherd,
 come back to a wick carjacker.
 Your everyone else, but yourself.

 I can’t pin you down,
 you’re my turning year,
 the first grape that darkens
 on the purpling bunch,
 the spiky corn-ear that swells
 with milky grain; near my toes
 you’re sweet cherries, autumn plums and a mulberry redder
 in the summer,
 a change in the weather,
 a new set of clothes,
 an alteration in the air,
 and I love you.

His seduction of her

You were a challenge. I knew as I
 could never impress you as myself.
 Too young, no prospects.
 Men have to invent
 themselves to get anywhere.

 I wanted to see you all the time.
 So I turns up at your door a rude farmer
 brought you a basket
 filled with ears of barley.

 Next, my forehead bound with freshly cut hay, as I might have been tossing new-mown grass.
 “Sorry. No men. Busy.”

 Another day I were lumping a horses
 bridle in my stiff hand, so that you would swear I had just unyoked a weary team.
 “No stables. Goodbye!”

 With a knife I were a female dresser
 and pruner of vines: “No vines
 here. I’m busy.”

 Sometimes I’d carry a ladder
 and bucket
 as if a Window cleaner.
 “No windows here. Goodbye.”

 A scraggy girl darkened in denim,
 begging a bunch of wildflowers
 for her mam and you said.
 “Nothing wild in this garden, girl.
 Sorry, mowed them all down

 A bespectacled man in a ballooned jumper, honeyed farmer, shy hunter,
 mollusced fisherman.
 “Sorry. Read the notice. No men allowed.”

The Old Lass

I wrap my head with a coloured scarf,
 lean on a staff, sprout grey hair, wrinkled
 as a decaying fruit, caved in hollows,
 thin skin, fungus faced, moles, brown blotches, sour breath, stink of stale piss lingers, and a small spiky moustache.

 She lets me in her well-tended garden, to admire the fruit
 and the fruit of her

 She
 is a Pear’s sweetness salves a searching tongue,
 a Peach’s blush like sunrise
 a Plum’s scent entices, smooth and laughing,
 a Cherry’s scarlet lips rain sodden
 a blossoming branch
 makes bees dance
 a secret orchard

‘You are so much more lovely’, I snog her.
 Then apologise.

 I sit on the flattened grass,
 look at the branches
 bend weighed down with fruit.

Vine and Tree

There is an elm opposite,
with gleaming bunches of grapes.
I tell her with my ancient voice.
“Remarkable tree, and its entwining vine.
But, if that tree stood there, unmated, without its vine, it wouldn’t be sought after for more than its leaves, and vine also, which is joined to and rests on the elm,
will lie on the ground,
if it were not married to it, and leaning on it.’

You reply “It is a tree. Marriage means nothing to me.”

 ” A thousand men want you,
 you shun them, turn away
from their wooing.

But if you are wise,
if you want to marry well,
 listen to me, an old lass,
as loves you more than you think,
more than them all, reject others
and choose Change to share your bed!

You have my pledge as well:
he’s not better known to himself
than he is to me: he does not wander
hither and thither, lives by himself
and he doesn’t love latest girl he’s seen.

You’ll be his first love, and his last.
He’ll devote his life only to you.
He’s young, blessed with natural charm,
can take on a fitting appearance, if needs be. Whatever you want,
though you ask for all of it,
he will do.

He doesn’t want fruit of your trees,
or sweet juice of your herbs:
he needs nothing but you.
Take pity on his ardour,
and believe that he,
who seeks you,
is begging you,
in person, through my gob.

I’ll tell you the tale
of Stone Lass

“Spunk sees Cruel lass from afar
 gobsmacked by her looks
 he gets smitten hard
 and determines she’ll be hooked

 Asks her mates for her mobile number,
 and all her social media pages,
 scours internet for details,
 winds himself up in rages.

 Gets his message through once
 or twice but she mocks him
 ” Fancy me. You do right. I’m gorgeous”
 and promptly blocks him.

 Finds her home and knocks
 and her Dad answers and says
 “She don’t want to know, son.
 Thinks your a stalker. Away!”

 Writes his first letter and posts
 it personally through her door,
 it tells her she’s won and he’ll be gone
 she can celebrate and more

 she can see him lose his life
 which is all he has left for her.
 Cruel scoffs at this but goes along
 for the crack and laughter.

 She sees him throw a rope
 already knotted around a beam
 put his neck in the noose
 and let out a scarifying scream.

 Then she feels herself harden
 stone thoughts
 stone mouth
 stone neck
 stone chest
 stone limbs
 stone heart

 calcified flesh and bone
 she is a statue.”

Picked Apple has no reaction.
Change thinks stuff it
and becomes himself
young, virile and fresh.

Picked Apple falls hard for him.

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