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460 · May 2020
Ash-trays
Mark Wilson May 2020
Pressed-foil bowls or bakelite cowls
Sitting still and open-mouthed
Ready to eat her dog-eared ash
Burnished or scarred as she burns-up her brass
Incensed as at a Virginia Mass
The tobacco weaves yellow shrouds

Coarse saffron fingers tap-tap at your rims
And dapple sweet drags on your lips
You could tell us some tales of long-drunken sins
Where the day-**** leave off and the night-**** begin
Of the filters with flares or the Park Drives with fins
With red lipstick, split lips and rouge films

Long nights without sleep extinguished in you
Harsh mornings begun in your bed
Some twisted, some stabbed as they poke them in you
The product of nicotine-jumpy sinews
Your pile overflows, now over to you,
Please tell: what goes out in your head?

— The End —