'Saturday evening houses in summer'

Published in Dream Catcher #33 (Summer 2016)

Saturday evening houses in summer

Saturday evening houses in summer
are all the go with pans and crockery
fed to the sink a flash of bus window
predicting out-of-season players massed
for the next stop brimful with pride with pain
but either way half-cut the table smells
of Indian or fish thin out beneath
the upstairs perfumes talcs the dresser-mess
wardrobes blown wide controlled explosions
of tops and knickers soon a thousand towns
will be turned over to the taxi-freight
of token ties alpine hems splendid lungs
till hours on a million mobile screens
skim through the dark like moonflakes
                                                               meanwhile those
becalmed in Saturday evening houses
confect distraction through other screens with
twenty year old rural bloodbaths or some
natty-pastel guide hopping trains from Rhyl
to Bangalore soon enough the taxis
will slow for drives and junctions abandon
the skewed the disassembled
                                                already
the houses are growing their Sunday skin
to suffer the drag of car-boot lugging
feel retail routes unfurled the quickened breath
of churchyard grasses on the up and up