ENVOI Poem by Sarah Howe

Go, my only friend. I know this voice has lost
its wintered savour - my sceptic's mewling cries
fritter out across the sad Atlantic's no-man's-land.
If I bury spoons, will you wait for them to bloom?
Estrangement - it had seemed so accidental -
was with us from the first, a doorjamb fixity.
It wasn't that randoms fingered you in bars.
I'm minded of your restive legs, once so sleek
in turquoise denim, now a fuss of cosseted skirts.
The worst is you can't share my unclean food.
Go, my brave hyperbole, chase your cabbalistic
constellations: whether questing beast or curate's
egg, clear-eyed or fly-addled, I can't settle on.
Go. Or come. You're the current, I'm the flotsam.