The Marbled Sigh

Rite

i can’t remember when the clocks
changed or the last time I was touched
lately I find myself naked a lot
but I’m in my kitchen looking down
at empty railways from an equally barren flat
while I wait for clothes to dry or pasta to boil
ignoring a radio that plays Stravinsky
then I wish for a man to jump
on a train that isn’t running
and come tell me that there are things
which are still alive just underneath my feet
or that January is too long but actually not enough
that the clocks are due to go forward in March
so nights will get shorter
and that my skin is soft like spring

Luís Costa (he/they) is the author of Two Dying Lovers Holding a Cat (Fourteen Poems). His poems are available or forthcoming in Queerlings, Stone of Madness, Roi Fainéant, Visual Verse, Boats Against The Current, Anthropocene, the anthology He/She/They/Us (Pan Macmillan), and elsewhere. He holds a PhD from Goldsmiths and lives in London, but you can find him on social media @captainiberia.