I don't know who put the cups on mats or the converted

garden dead in bowls where they stay, incorruptible

and mute as saints. I am not sure where, but the air

was a mist, full with talc, pricked withhairspray's

lingering tack. Please, sit. Write down all that can

be remembered on this scented page. And by the time

we're done you won't recognise the place. Won't stay put:

sweeps up, plumps cushions, shuffles mess away. Worrying more

and more in to the heaving drawer of the sideboard.

Check the corners of your lint-lined brain. Can you at least say,

what is the word in the way of the word on the tip of my tongue?

By the window you can see it: the false depths in polished wood,

the creases in your morning face, how thrown together a day is.