Extract: 'Urination'

I'm scared of bumping someone while they piss
those Mondays I'm a packhorse        bags hung
swinging around the urinal bodies
and one day      I know      I'll knock someone
and they'll piss their legs     or they'll turn slightly
and show another man their full arc
or they'll fall into their own wet puddle
cock limp     and neither of us will look
or he'll look at me avoiding looking
feigning interest in the hard cream tiles
maybe it's that I dream of being bumped
knocked from my aim by a stranger
the briefest touch during the private act
the toilet is an intimacy
only shared with parents when you are young
and once again when they are older
and with lovers when     say     on a Sunday
morning stretching into the bathroom
you wake to the sound of stream into bowl
and go to hug the naked body
stood with its back to you     and kiss the neck
and taste the whole of the night on there
and smell the morning's pale yellow loss
and take the whole of him in your hand
and feel the water moving through him
and knowing that this is love     the prone flesh
what we expel from the body and what we let inside

Extract: 'Finally'

a day will come       when
woken by the xylophone
of sunthroughblinds
you'll realise

that the beach was not the place
where horses tore the sand
to ribbon

that the scent of him has lifted
from the last of the sheets
that he isn't coming back

that it hasn't rained
but the birds are pretending that it has
so they can sing

Commissions & Articles

Sea Swim

This poem by Andrew McMillan is part of the ILS' 'Crossing Borders' series.