It was already noon <br />but I was awake. <br />You came into the kitchen, <br />a black band tied hurriedly in your hair, <br />blue vest strap falling off a shoulder, <br />our bed creases still trapped in your eyes. <br />I had made breakfast for you, <br />the spread fruit sweating on the table, <br />their colours like a child swimming <br />at the height of summer. <br />You leant down and fed me a kiss, <br />unfinished from the night before; <br />the kiss that had passed from your mouth <br />moaning before it knocked us unconscious. <br /> <br />You waited as the kettle boiled. <br />I noticed the red polish on your toe nails, <br />and the shy Japanese parasols <br />spread across the bones of your feet. <br />You stood with your hips swaggered in that way, <br />as if they had just taken half a swig of whisky. <br />The blue vest strap was still unhooked, <br />you continued to let it off of lightly for its behaviour. <br />I was glad I had forgotten to make tea. <br /> <br />Back at the table I watched you eat and drink. <br />Your fingertips picked at the fruit in a familiar way, <br />and your lips scooped up the melon like it was my chest. <br />You chewed and swallowed and chewed and swallowed <br />while I watched waiting to leap on you again from the shadows, <br />to find that spot on your neck that I'd left half-eaten, <br />to peel you open and leave you to ripen softly in the sun. <br />But you just looked up at me between bites, <br />laughing at the wounds you'd left on my shoulders, <br />comparing the dedication of your teeth marks to mine <br />and patching up my skin with a toothpaste tongue. <br />So instead I ate a strawberry and two nectarines. <br />I had to pretend I was hungry too.<br /><br />Oliver Roberts<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/breakfast-4/
