The Evidence
I need my trousers. I need to slouch
on something soft. The room is empty except for a clothes-horse on its side and another, unclothed, saluting. I slide down the wall, it’s hot. The room is too small. Everything is white. Bottles of wine spill on the floor. Who did this? Wine pooling, but solid, like jelly. And sweat. Everything is sweating, the walls, my hair even the clothes racks are wet. Dripping like wild animals hot and wet and tired.
*
At breakfast I sign for my chinos
on an electronic pad. Are those flowers for me? she asks. We both laugh and I love the way and again, the way she cups her hand over her mouth like something wants to escape uncontrollably. I pull at stretchy plastic, she sips her coffee and taps the newspaper, a hole appears and I slide the trousers out, they are folded neatly, ironed with lavender and soap.
*
I hear the door slam, the car engine, that faint
squeal of brakes that only her car with its oscillating clamour, its start-up shudder, coughing and smoking, the web of scratches in gold paint, mustard undercoat, mustard interior, fermented apples, greasy paper, sweating, a cheese sandwich in glad-wrap, silicone, a netball rolling in the boot, sweating, down the street I hear a thud and then a roll and then the slow fish of escaping air.
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