a trembling reaction
to every way you fought to keep my hands in yours
a fickle name to how your eyelids only leaked promises
and how i only ever met your lips with broken glass
you tried to pry the answers from my cigarette but you forgot that I buried your baby teeth in the backyard last summer
one, two,
count my fingers out the window like your swans almost in flight
every creature passed under your embrace learned how to curve their wings up like forged protection
from your spitfire

our teeth leak venom and motor oil, it tastes like how your fists feel against your children's skin
when you wrap the women in chains made of expensive gifts and shattered promises, sometimes they clean their teeth and fight back.

maybe i won't remember to draw the curtains after you leave

but i'll always leave a key under your pillow.

It is later than late,
the simmered down darkness
of the jukebox hour.

The hour of drunkenness
and cigarettes.
The fools hour.

In my dreams,
I still smoke, cigarette after cigarette.
It's okay, I'm dreaming.
In dreams, smoking can't **** me.

It's warm outside.
I have every window open.
There's no such thing as danger,
only the dangerous face of beauty.

I am hanging at my window
like a houseplant.
I am smoking a cigarette.
I am having a drink.

The pale, blue moon is shining.
The savage stars appear.
Every fool that passes by
smiles up at me.

I drip ashes on them.

There is music playing from somewhere.
A thready, salt-sweet tune I don't know
any of the words to.
There's a gentle breeze making
hopscotch with my hair.

This is the wet blanket air of midnight.
This is the incremental hour.
This is the plastic placemat of time
between reality and make-believe.
This is tabletop dream time.

I still see the boy in the baggy trousers playing in the sand,
With a rubber ball in one hand, and in the other my tiny hand.
‘Hold hands so that you don’t lose each other,’ Mum screams from the gate.
The four-toothed grin of my favourite playmate.

I still see the boy with the ‘lucky’ green wrist band,
Who crossed the street with me on the first day of school- hand in hand.
And tugged at my neat pigtails from the bench behind me,
The mischievous smile of a schoolboy- so carefree.

I still see the boy with the bow tie, standing six feet tall,
Who held my hand as we made our way across the resplendent hall.
We danced and swayed till the clock declared it time to part,
The dreamy, flirtatious smile of a high school sweetheart.

Now, I see the man in the turquoise suit so grand,
As man and wife they leave the church; he gently holds her hand.
‘…hold hands so that you don’t lose each other,’
The desolate smile of a helpless narrator.