Parts of Us
And thinking myself alone
I turn to see you still awake, likewise
staring starward.
I’m afloat now, very much alert on deck
to how love sends sense overboard
with sharing and laughter and our making up
of nonsense words, or reworking all those
terms to claim, like bits of ships, those parts of us
that have no name.
Thank you for my oldde scudgels,
I gifted thee thy twisted bunths
(both of them), our tangled, boozy bodies
the mainbrace, I’ve been kissing better
that skin gruffle (your sui generis frown), our wonky teeth
without a doubt an offshore skirmish…
(and there must be a word
for that annoying smirk new couples share
when drowning.)
Rob Miles has been a closet poet as long as he can remember. He grew up in Devon and lives in Yorkshire. Aside from a piece published by his primary school teachers titled ‘Peas and Botatoes’ (they liked the mistakes) and a flourish between 2004 and 2007 in Orbis, Borderlines: The Anglo-Welsh Poetry Society and Obsessed with Pipework, he has not sent any work for consideration and has never entered competitions before. He’s looking at quite a backlog and has begun to read at local open mic events. Rob has a PhD in Spanish and lectures in Hispanic visual cultures, literature and translation at Hull University where he is kept on his toes by the ghost of Larkin.
And thinking myself alone
I turn to see you still awake, likewise
staring starward.
I’m afloat now, very much alert on deck
to how love sends sense overboard
with sharing and laughter and our making up
of nonsense words, or reworking all those
terms to claim, like bits of ships, those parts of us
that have no name.
Thank you for my oldde scudgels,
I gifted thee thy twisted bunths
(both of them), our tangled, boozy bodies
the mainbrace, I’ve been kissing better
that skin gruffle (your sui generis frown), our wonky teeth
without a doubt an offshore skirmish…
(and there must be a word
for that annoying smirk new couples share
when drowning.)
Rob Miles has been a closet poet as long as he can remember. He grew up in Devon and lives in Yorkshire. Aside from a piece published by his primary school teachers titled ‘Peas and Botatoes’ (they liked the mistakes) and a flourish between 2004 and 2007 in Orbis, Borderlines: The Anglo-Welsh Poetry Society and Obsessed with Pipework, he has not sent any work for consideration and has never entered competitions before. He’s looking at quite a backlog and has begun to read at local open mic events. Rob has a PhD in Spanish and lectures in Hispanic visual cultures, literature and translation at Hull University where he is kept on his toes by the ghost of Larkin.
