It fills the room and strokes each wall, a stale
and stagnant smoky pall as if the seasons
stuttered in late autumn, and time hangs still
awaiting its post-mortem. Soft moans escape
from urgent lips, the sound of silk on fingertips;
sweat congregates upon our skin and emptiness
pervades within. Tomorrow it will start again,
light tapping on the window pane; the steady hum
of early traffic  parking where these autographic
voices whisper, whine and hiss - you cannot take
much more of this. There are those who gawp  
for hours in mausoleums, become the very stuffing
of museums. Sentences both short and long
pace the space where time is hung and strung out
on a line its fingers flapping: admit defeat,
it’s to this beat your feet are tapping