Keyways Owen Sheers

Strange then, that this should be our last time together.
Standing in line at the locksmith's
waiting for a set of your keys to be cut
so I can visit your flat when you're out
and take back all that's mine again.

The hot day outside presses to the shop window glass,
lights the uncut sets along the wall
like lucky charms along a bracelet.
And I realise that's how I felt when we first met -
an uncut key, a smooth blade, edentate,

waiting for your impression, the milling and grooves
of moments in time, until our keyways would fit,
as they finally did in that chapel, our breaths
rising and falling in unison as we listened to the Messiah,
touching at elbow, shoulder and hip

like a pair of Siamese twins sharing one lung.
From then on I was sure we were keyed alike.
That our combinations matched,
our tumblers aligned precisely to give and roll perfectly
into the other's empty spaces.

And at night, when you slept facing away from me
and I held the bow of your hip,
again it was coming home, my stomach, the small of your back,
my knees in the hollows of yours, a master key fit.
So when did the bolt slip? The blade break in the mouth?