Buttressed

Parliament buildings glow in the autumn evening shells of democracy now lit only from behind

I’m patrolling for a perp who rolls drunks does break-ins for loot

I have the drunk in my field glasses hiding between buttresses, I’m camera ready

(much more of this, I’ll become Mother Theresa but I need no Pope for an audience)

here comes the suspect he approaches the bum like a jackal to a sleeping cheetah, but doesn’t need a pack he knows why they drink, what they need and haven’t got

twenty yards away, he won’t see my breath tonight he is slow, perhaps nowhere else to go but completely focused, the way I’m absorbed in you the way you’re into radio morning and night

many times I wish you’d turn it off I’m on to you, even more than Joni Mitchell

the perp has fallen asleep stars fading into the immersion of a rainy day

there is nothing more to do now my shift is ending I want to join you soon, but I’m safer writing you notes

words stroke you like the tongue of a cat and wings of a moth you can open notes in your own time mine’s wrapped in you

I’m a chrysalis just hanging by a thread waiting to shed what has clung to me like discarded cellophane but don’t quote me you have no real evidence unless a news bulletin announces I’m finally home.