AIRBAGS

We ink them all over in kisses and hearts

Fuse fingers into nests around each flame

We wait for a slow, rolling heat to blister the air

Letting out a rash of white balloons

Their flickering skins dancing on the blacks 

Of our eyes.

And even though my head is in the bin

With the cellophane and its 99p sticker

And even though my head is in a tree

Two weeks from now, imagining the ribs of it

Charred orange with rainwater, bust open

Like someone’s taken a tin opener to it

Our wet words bandaging the branches and leaves

Something heavy had lifted away from me

And it keeps on rising.