Golden Slumbers
I leave you reading the Times’ top 100 Rich List
Through your Van Loren tortoiseshell wayfarer shades
And put the kettle on.
I feel safe now you’re here with me, big brother;
Your nose-ring and Mexican Inca tattoo are antidotes
To the forces of repression.
You have been away lobbying the Highways Commissioner,
Squeezing out sparks, duping those bypass contractors
Like flies tormenting cattle
And are proud of your scars, like the wonky tooth
That you wriggle at the mention of jobs, money
And your length of stay.
All weekend the sun has scorched my veranda dry
of ants and beetles, its walls aglow with your golden skin
Stretched out like Formica.
This is you now, as you were, and still are on my cabinet
Framed in dark leaf; freckled and fanciful, towering over me,
All sour and pale-faced.
I have missed you and will not mention the gaps in my CD rack,
The open bedroom drawers or imploding mud-rimmed bath,
Preferring ludo instead.
It’s your move. I’m watching, sifting the coils of fading sunlight
In your shock of hair, counting the seconds, the moment when you
Will ask for another ‘loan’.
But the only ones winning are a swarm of midges hugging our space, Attracted to the Paco Rabanne aftershave you wear to illustrate
That you’re not a ‘victim’.
Page(s) 44
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