Inside / on a random Wednesday in October,
thinking (of you) & marking premonitions.

          How I stuff the air with my errors.

          In my mind I reverse my walks.

                    Butterflies distort 

                    every mention of sound.

          Was it a false inference to take this world as real

          without confirmation by touch?

There are new rainstorms rolling in.

A box-fresh microwave from a previously unknown manufacturer 

hums in the kitchen.

          There are things going on outside 

          but I cannot see them happening.

                    Everyone seems to be ill in some way,

                    throats of broken glass; foretaste of decay.

          A hailstorm could smash all the windows,

          blow the inside out & the outside in.

The eye withdraws from the brightest light

while desire sees in the murk 

the exaggeration of a curve 

to a blind point 

of change & awe.

          For now the rain has stopped & the moonlight blinks in the puddles 

          in an entirely musical way.

                    The wet leaves shimmer unsteadily like tender ribbons.

                  Yes really all I think about lately is you. 

…

Simon Ravenscroft lives in Cambridge, England. He has published poems recently in Osmosis Press, The Penn Review, Apocalypse Confidential, La Piccioletta Barca, ē·rā/tiō, Soft Union, High Horse, Full House Literary, and other places. He is a Fellow of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge, and his website is: simonravenscroft.haus