Emptiness, or A Romance Concerning the Poet and the Dulux Paint Catalogue by Simon Cockle

At the beginning,
you were Almost Oyster;
pale, but still precious.
I ran my fingers across
the straight lines you presented.

By the spring, you’d changed.
Then, you were Elderflower Tea;
warm, in the morning’s chill.
I leant my back against you;
we could stay like this for hours.

All through the summer,
I named you Egyptian Cotton;
cool, but not distant.
I prostrated myself, my cheek
resisting your flatness; as one.

But, by the winter,
you’d returned to Soft Stone;
shadows engulfed you.
I reached out in the morning:
what returned was emptiness.

Simon Cockle is a poet and writer from Hertfordshire. He writes as part of Poetry ID, a Stanza of the Poetry Society. His poems have been published in iOTA, Prole, The Lampeter Review, An Algebra of Owls and the London Progressive Journal, amongst others. He was invited to read at last year’s Ledbury Poetry Festival as part of the Poetica Botanica event. He teaches English in a local comprehensive school, and has a wife and daughter who nod reassuringly when he reads them his poems. More of his poems can be found at https://simoncockle.wordpress.com/ .