I draw curtains, light lamps as he, humped
like an ape, gapes at a leopard prowling
in plasma. The powdery eyes of its fur
blur as it hurls at its prey. She gets away.
He swigs, I switch channel. Prison romance,
D-list dance, talk-show threesomes, real-life
crime. That makes his feet twitch – a girl’s
chunked remains unwrapped from a ditch.
With that gory story I serve his steak
and kidney, a clutch of chips. As he punctures
the pie, brown mince laps the plate,
I ponder his insides, what colour they take.
We tread up to bed. Listen to this I say,
on two men tripping down steps at work.
One even broke his back. I hope he was black,
he mutters, his rump thumping the banisters.
As we enter the room, I gabble on spiders,
snakes, lakes of jewelled fish. He stares, waits
while my words burn, sand filling my throat.
Dumb. Then he yanks blinds, thumps lights,
slams me, rams me down. But I am gone.
I gallop on cloud, while Earth crawls below,
a drop, a clod. I am meteor blazing in space.
I sail the nebula of night.
And when my bed lands, my husband sleeps,
a deep furrow of snore. His right hand trails
the carpet on the floor, a loose strand
I’ll sew tomorrow.