The Isle Of We Poem by Tony Jolley

Sometimes,
Sprawled in bed,
When we’ve tumbled
Into a tired tangle of arms and legs,
We stumble
Upon an entwining par excellence
Devoid of the usual numbed nerves,
Cramped calves
And pins and needles,
In which neither dare move a muscle
For fear of perfection interruption,
But instead send out stealth signals
Up and down the highways and byways
Of our bodies:
Reconnaissance missions
To reconnoitre and report,
To seek and enjoy
The feeling of not being able to feel
Our respective frontiers:
No Checkpoint Charlies;
No ‘Nothing to Declares’;
No lines;
No signs
To demarcate,
To separate;
No border,
No boundary –
Not even a nomansland
Between you and me.


Sometiimes,
For whole minutes at Eternity’s End
We lie like this:
I’m you
And you’re me
Or there’s no you and me at all:
Just we.


Then, inevitably,
Involuntarily,
There comes a twitch or stretch
To cut me off and cast me loose again
Upon a singular sea of me,
And I find myself Odysseus,
Seeking landfall on the Isle of We.