Making Contact

It's dusk and the old electric heater is trying its four bars.
I am thinking, again, of where you are and how I might get through.

          The medium was a nonsense of guesswork and guile
          and the dreams I had were forced narratives.

          I tried writing a letter with my right hand.
          After a glass of wine, I used the left to channel your reply
          but all that came out were backhanded compliments.

The room is slowly losing its chill. The cat spills herself onto my lap
and

          I wonder if you were happy here,
          where we sat as a family in the bowl of the valley;
          waking to birds fluting and chipping their native mimicry,
          then following the late afternoon arrows of geese
          over acres of hard graft and laden fruit trees.

How long do you think it will be until I can sleep?

I see.

          I see.

At Dusk

I took myself beyond retraction,
like a question ventured
with a blush,
scored my shadow
into the shelf of the cliff
like a vandal's name
or the struck sticks of boys
bored with the day.
Splashes, then great waves,
overshot the clay pathway
causing spathic falls.
A dog called Daisy
stopped to warn me
that this was not a safe route
for any woman lost in thought.
Strange, that fear and thrill;
that sick risk plummet
of the stomach
when we realise
the only way is forward
and return will have to be
accomplished in the dark.