Stephen Symons
Someone calls
as clouds dull
to the colour of a dead tooth pink threads of day linger and then unravel without warning within the breath of this instant thoughts die as quickly as they take flame swallows switch and glide
wings dusted
with the ashes of last light beaks stuffed with
invisible insects inside a kettle boils away the sadness of a kitchen on a Sunday evening a window perspires condensing time to a chart of deltas and tributaries that trickle to the bottom of the frame
to one of those irrelevant points of focus that coaxes the mind to wander off a cliff last night I dreamt you left me for another man and my heart became a cupboard of small cups overflowing with the sawdust of my dream the kitchen and its shapes and smells curdle to a dread planet thickened by egg yolk and roughened by black crumbs of toast the swallows have long since
abandoned their prey a bat scatters beneath a streetlight a moth tempts fate and that thought of you in the arms of another man finds the flowers on the kitchen curtains
and combusts
Featured at the Red Wheelbarrow on 20 January 2022
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