Inside the penguin constellation
beside a very little fire
we’re sat in two knit beanies
playing games with bits of ice
from back when we were young.
Yesterday, we ran away from home.
Now the frozen lake lies all around us.
Hush, don’t cry…
Kaleidoscope-like, the cosmos is unfurling
in shattered colours, luminous glass shards.
Just say the word
and this night will be made a spaceship
lit bright by our secrets.
Inside the penguin constellation
in the silence of deep space
we count out dying comets
and night-echoes rising from dark planet Earth…
…that creaks away on giant cogs
with churches for invisible gods
and all around are killers and the dead
with armies, jails, insane asylums
and acts of love transacted –
but don’t you fear, we two are here.
Inside the penguin constellation
beside a very little fire
we’re sat in two knit beanies
playing games with bits of ice
from back when we were young.
Our old lives now are scattered away
and what tomorrow brings no-one can say.
Hush, don’t cry…
Tonight we’re lost in space so vast
but you and I will be each other’s nest.
Just say the word and the white bear
will come to us at midnight
and gather us two up, tight in its warm embrace…
