The earth is hungry for me. I feel it in every step, in the way the green morning sun grabs at my sleeve on the platform when the metro train arrives, in the gnashing maws of blooded cloud that conceal the moon like a mad aunt. I've kept it waiting so long, forty years now; it caught my father under the wax-window, & removed him to a place in the air. The lithium salts laughed & laughed when I found a shadow at the bottom of the night-bottle. I no longer lean out over the sick, slick hands of the river when I go to the waterfront bars. I'm still a step or two ahead, but let's face it - the tree leers in leaf, the stones are snide, & my eye looks so dark in this whisky reflection.