So Buttoned Up

— After two opening lines in ‘For Love of You’ by US poet Stephen Bett 

By Emma Neale

First time in my god
damned life I forgot
my name and when
you said it, it went
sherbet-wise inside
the tiny wires
of each thought-capillary
every ringing filament
streamed like candy dazzle
lights in the rain
so how to maintain
equipoise on its leggy stems
without once thinking of how
the wine glasses we held were
modelled on a French Queen’s
breasts and then nek minnit
as they didn’t say then
(we’re old-timers, baby)
you were asking me
and what do you do
for a living?
When the truth was
I’d been in some wise dead
until my name fled
and you chased it
while I feigned
not to know
certain facts such as
the very pulse of its note
had just been breath
warmed beneath where
those shirt buttons sat
obedient and still
as small bald monks
meditating
patiently
upon
detachment.

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