Jo Langdon

Splice

Shower steam condensed
               against the glass—

the potted plant is thriving
               though forgotten, mostly;

               its slender leaves streaked
                              lighter & paler

shades of green, centres of
               melon rind spliced

                                             to softest lime.

Curled by the wall tiles,
               a child breathes loose
                              the seeds of a dandelion;

her sister holds
               a foil balloon
                              below Vienna’s sky

                                             melting & bright.

Roomers

To lean into this dream and lift you
               wholly from it, as if

I might bleach away history,
               fade out ghosts and lend us to

some airy realm of forgetting,
               of newness, or absence

                              without regret.

Mornings bring us awake
               to pictures laced with edges of light

and nothing else. Shadow facts
               that play the paintwork

above us where we slept, skin-near
               yet faraway, in drifting, other rooms.