Heat streams visibly from the radiator, lifting the pages of the calendar
and the afternoon sun in bands through the window revealing the wall to be so much more. Recapitulated here, texture of the roller across that compromised surface, it's cratered skin and angles, and there, the brush, cutting in around the radiator. Magnolia
it's woven canopy, dragged bristles.
Time is abundant, if we refuse distraction, if we refuse to be entertained
pale yellow at the edges of the sky and the birds elegiac in flight across it,
in no rush either. Dream of contrails dissipating and television aerials,
the dying orchid , the tonal discrimination
of the birds. We have come this far, cold and shaken up, aching
to be healed as the parakeets dangle from wet branches.
Earlier that day, France in the eighteenth century,a frivolous adventure
how the faces change over the years, become ever more unmistakably
caught in our own world, not abstracted into some other lustrous horizon
far away. Lives in paint, a small dog at the ankles.
Impossible to speak of the absence, searching every face for a sign. We would like to come in out of the cold. And the light fades sun dips below the houses and the wall flattens into shadow again.
We live our lives in windows, like advent calendars. You can see us from the street, or from another window opposite
washing dishes, watching television,
or in squalor, scratching the eyeballs.
Tesco Express processes shoppers down the line chlorinated lettuce with croutons.
We wanted to exit entirely, and the sky rush through the skull like that, without impediment. Just this dismal life, on bruised feet, wanting to be rescued. My glorious swan-song, curled up in the corner and puking as the lights come on. It fell apart. A failure. Chicken dippers. A pot of gooseberry jam. Rheumatism. Growing old in a damp climate. And beyond the Tesco, the valley, cluttered with houses, under its pall of smog. You can say I love you as often as you like, all they do is laugh.
Shelf-stable, drooping behind the cellophane window. Fed your own lies. Want to be special, a special boy. Lonely, in a corner of the sky. It's just a losing lottery ticket, this life. There's more dog shit than there was a few years ago, I guess people stopped caring. It looks so sad, the way you tried to make it look pretty, and the wind hurling dust in our eyes. Battle tanks churn up the soil, gun turrets swivelling. We've already stayed too long. Knees aching at the onset of rain. The mud unavoidable. The window full of insults. Gun fire rattling from the valley, insurgents, or more likely
just gun fire turning the sky ragged.
Friendly potato chips, salt under the fingernails. Switch the phone off, disappear.