Listening to Roy

Never quite got what made the girls collapse
at One Direction’s curls and croons, but when
Roy Orbison belts out of my headphones,
a loosening takes over me and I
am weeping steadily behind my sunglasses.

What wakes in Bethlehem tonight, so warm
and soothing like a thaw it makes the hard
exteriors cry openly on stone
and sand? I am not meant for love, I thought,
until the switchblade of that voice
unpicked my heart from its moorings.

I think that I could love a guy like him,
so shorn of sarcasm he flies.