Poem: Unbeatable

I thought a wall had gone up between us.

But now I realise,

We are just different heights.

You sat there. Me standing here.

 

Each time I bend down to hug you, the world turns upside down

And my stomach churns.

But there’s nothing I can do about that.

 

Sentences spoken as if written in circles on the page.

No end. No beginning. Repeated again and again.

Words juggling forever in mid-air.

 

Thin. Lost. Crumpled.

Drained of colour.

You look like laundry lain across a chair.

 

But then you come alive.

As if shocked into fight. A last almighty stand

In the face of fate and fading.

 

I want to punch the air.

With the thrill of it.

I am a child again, on your shoulders.

The two of us unbeatable.

 

 

Simon Denegri

24 January 2018