All This Talk Of Time

Where my mouth should be is a velvet
poppy, full-skirted and rich; mute and
inanimate. The lights bob across the room
in the shape of men and women. there is
a golden gauze across my eyes.

Memories of evenings skate over me,
tiny ice-blades over scarred dance-floors
and escaped cushions (They were heaped on
the couch all around me, but their silk bodies
now rest on the grit and floor-polish).

Empirical evidence of my guilt, cream
and bitter ankle-lace pool on the hall table,
where the mirror is cracked from an Oriental
goblet. There is weird Obsidian music pulling
against my shoulder, ruffling the flower that rests
where my mouth should be.