ABOUT MIDNIGHT

ABOUT MIDNIGHT

ABOUT MIDNIGHT

In among these wet, melon skins
I sit with my back to the bar,

cross-legged, smiling my red mouth.
I’ve painted myself black and leather.  

My eyes move quickly, circling
the high, loud limbs of the night.

In the centre of the dance floor
a lioness shrieks in her own bath.

Like red pearls, dry lips pucker
to the eager glass. I drink and blaze.

An animal going mad for the garland
of a woman rolls over to the end

of the bar like a devil’s tongue, red
and greasy, stoned on his own poison

and licking his lips. A man in love
spreads a flock of fingers on my thigh.

I undo them until he hates me
and raise a finger to his back.

The room is flooding, people float
as if on water and music. I stumble

onto my heels and drown with a wrong boy
while the moon turns onto her white belly

and is fed secrets by crippled mouths;
a boyfriend passed out, a glass shattered,

a woman tasted, a child coming to seed
with her legs wrapped around a man,

the night moistening the darkness
with its many breaths.