The relentless clock ticks
like a pseudo heartbeat,
prattling platitudes
of sententious pity.
Two decades summons pragmatism:
a mouth to kiss,
a place to eat, to shit
and shove like lambing ewe.
Set it in stone at twenty-five;
a diamond glares from Facebook,
a Gorgon eye, a quick click analgesic.
Marry overborne bricks
and surrender nature’s piquancy
to kitchens where flies fuck
on all the dinners not savoured.
Probe for passion in drains,
Tupperware, between stale sheets.
Aridity resists fornication
in a grope for absent frisson;
a stretch across oceans,
portenous as premature world-weary yawns,
Three syllables ought to roll easily
yet sear acidic, two tongues curtailed
and bourne back into silence.