Wizard

Wizard

There is a wizard downstairs
in the flat below.
He wears a pointy hat
and a dressing gown
and he makes rainbows for me.

He wipes the dust from his spell books
- mixes it with tomato juice,
eye of black bean, crust of tooth paste,
microwaves it in a pudding bowl
and then

...

tells it secrets.

Heating up rainbows,
there is a wizard downstairs
with a bumper-carred grin.
One eye all Ferris wheels,
one eye the underside of a scratched CD.

He can't do hellos or goodbyes
but knows everything in between.

He knows what tea leaves think
after they've been read,
can see the faces talking
in the damp patch in his kitchen
-corrects their algebra
-makes them blush.
Patchworks his bedroom with postcards and photos,
says they switch places when he sleeps.
I believe him.

I think about him when I'm at work
as I type other people's words
on a computer that doesn't even
have a name.

He names everything.

The kettle is called Ursula Pink.
She embodies the ghost
of a menopausal midwife.
Poor Ursula.
Lime scales her children.

Morgan the dish rack wishes
he could swap places with the plates.
"Confounded scoundrels!"
Let them carry him for once.

The toaster is Catherine Taylor-Clarke
(Double-barrel, 'cos she's posh),
will burn your bread if you look at her wrong.
but Wizard says he would never change her,
he likes her as she is,
If she just did what he wanted all the time,
she'd be boring.

When Wizard talks,
words start fire working his lips,
tiny explosions tease on his tongue.
I want to study them,
pick them up when they look cooler,
but I'm scared they'd blow up in my face.

This man is a bonfire of love,
a Hero,
will fly you on a carpet
through a thousand lands
of impossibly beautiful dreams
all inside his flat.

He won't go outside anymore.
Says his magic won't work out there.
It's happening here,
where he makes me rainbows
and I make his tea.