The Dark Wants

By Amy Adshead

I have my legs splayed for you, the window  

is blowing the red curtains apart. The night 

is often indigo, tango, roger rabbit  

whatever that alphabet is. Over the phone  

your voice sounds like you’re stood on the moon 

or in a cavernous place. I miss you. I’m so thin 

without you. The only light over me 

is bleeding out from the lamppost on the street.  

I think you’d love the shadow it casts on my ribs.  

The same song has been replaying tonight, 

the refrain over and over. I feel like that, 

our voices together in my mind, quietly ringing. 

My hand is cupping my cheek, do you miss me also? 

I have wrapped the empty bedsheets around me like a chemise.  I miss the cold of the balcony, there I could be the most beautiful creature, my ivory robes, drifting over my thighs, red lips dripping over the railing. Though you cannot see this on the landline. Therefore:  

barren, a spare part, I lay. The dark and its jaded hands  

sifting over me, picking through my hair. The breeze is 

a hungry ape, eager to get away from my human-ness. I feel it darting through the house, the bed creak,  

the hollowness of the sound without you over me. My skin, a waiting canvas. The hum of your voice as the city lights leave and I become a shape of shadows: I miss you.