Bedroom

you're new hair that flows out with the old
touching light concealer across your face
your dresser is a cornucopia of cosmetics,
plastic fiber blusher brushes,
spread carefully as the golden frame
arching around the corners of the mirror
hold together to create you
but just know that to me you don't need it
you're all the beauty I could ever handle
underneath you eyeliner.

Divorcees

behind the patrician we're drinking
beer we stole from the front bar
cigarette butts by the fire escape
watching the stars
and they're fading, the dancers
came here in their frost covered saloons
spinning their bodies creased skin
drinking lime and tonic through straws
Tuesdays and Thursdays, sequins, satin and stereos
they dance in tandem strap up shoes
spinning through the rodeo requiem
and hell the dark haired, pin stripe shirt, middle man romeo
you got to wonder where they had their first drinks?
what their kids would say, pressing the hips
into the dark jeans and the dried skin on the lips
now their heading for the front door
out to the car park, into the backseat
melting the windows in the heat

Temple

to the great temple they clamber
black specks sullying the white stone concourse
glass towers rise from the ground like teeth
gnawing at the clouds
on and on they flood the reception areas
the elevators, the static carpets crackle
beneath black leather and rubber
here like the bowls of a viking armada
keyboards as oars, roaring through the
ocean spray of outboxes
the storm clouds of lunchtime meetings
and the inevitable death of the day
the sun sliding past west facing windows
God clocking out sighing.

Work.

old couples on yellowing plastic chairs

the heat of the griddle dull on my face

a quiet meeting of bottles, drinks cans

restocking the freezers in a stained apron

a glass causeway above the market stalls

peppered with garish advertisements

homeless men with accordions

play the notes of the winds that swept them here

blue ink on paper receipts, smudged in purses

the nauseous smell of beef slowly cooking

thick and bulbous in the broth

I lose the time and smile across the counter