poems by Lenni Sanders

Poor Circulation

My handsome, my hands
are always cold.
If I was to tenderly touch your back
or your face
while you are sleeping tonight,
would you think the Grim Reaper
had come to sniff-snatch away your warm breath
in his bony, lonely nostrils?
Then roll over, lover,
and hug me closely,
make sure my blood keeps rolling,
and we’ll make such a sheet-time equator
mortality won’t have a look in,
and anything but NOW
will faint and wilt and melt.
Kiss me now, live forever,
keep us from the cold.

***

Mu and Lemuria

Scientists chew on their pen lids
and laboriously conclude

that they’re certain the lost continent of Mu
never existed;
neither Lemuria.

At great length
they put thermometers in the sea,
tippy toed right up to the mouths of caves
in their smart coats (careful not to muddy them)
and did a gastroscopy.

They took the petals off
the flowers that eat men
and smell like manna
and took them back to laboratories,

where now they conclude
that wild and uncontrollable places
where there were never television sets
to eat your tea in front of
never disappeared under the waves,
never existed.

*****

Bio: "Lenni Sanders is a messy child who scrawls in all her
notebooks when she should be writing neatly and nicely. Aged 18, she
was a Commended Foyles Poet in 2010, and has been published on paper
(North West England anthologies of youth writing) and in cyberspace
(www.ink-sweat-and-tears.com)."