Manhunt

• After the first phase,
• after passionate nights and intimate days,
• only then would he let me trace
• the frozen river which ran through his face,
• only then would he let me explore
• the blown hinge of his lower jaw,
• and handle and hold
• the damaged, porcelain collar-bone,
• and mind and attend
• the fractured rudder of shoulder-blade,
• and finger and thumb
• the parachute silk of his punctured lung.
• Only then could I bind the struts
• and climb the rungs of his broken ribs,
• and feel the hurt
• of his grazed heart.
• Skirting along,
• only then could I picture the scan,
• the foetus of metal beneath his chest
• where the bullet had finally come to rest.
• Then I widened the search,
• traced the scarring back to its source
• to a sweating, unexploded mine
• buried deep in his mind, around which
• every nerve in his body had tightened and closed.
• Then, and only then, did I come close.