there’s a place I don’t go

where the rocks grind smooth

a place where dancing cockatoos

sing glitter tunes in hot pubs with

sticky carpet and the clunk of

boulles outside in a warm

pink evening

I don’t abide there anymore

in a beer-soaked fug of joy

the urgent oration

knowing words were

so important

ephemeral

and you

looked at me across the bar

flying on sequin wings

back to the room of my four-poster bed

yet another place I no longer dwell