Her eyes are pleated
as I tip-toe across the bridge of her nose
She bites me with her slight sighs
her arms stretched out like railway lines-
infinite in each direction
and out of the blue, I consider the snow falling in the Summer Garden
She says, as we eat Chinese takeaway in Emperor’s Gate,
“You know, I’ve had that very thought myself”

Her eyes are pleated
as I reach to open our second bottle of strawberry Jinro
[which I know will render me down to a rhesus]
we become embroiled by a silence
Suddenly, neither one of us has ever spoken before in our lives
and I remember that there is no rain above the clouds
She shrugs, puts spoons in our yogurt
and I wonder if the sky really can go on forever