By Jake Roberts
An old statuette demands supremacy
From the safety of the mantelpiece.
Yours, up for good this time, you smile,
This time we promised. Flecks of paint,
Faint from here, returned to taunt
The drab shallows of newer portraits
With their clammy, photographic sheen.
Not she, all gloss and grin, crafted,
Polished, matchless bride
To interior pining. You dance
Your way around the sun, hours snap by,
Night washes in, I elope backwards.
Morning comes early. I race its breaking
But find a glib dawn at the window,
Your skin pooling like wax, hot pain
Like the tearing of ligaments, a smile
Still – not that which I had seen before.
The crackle of denial from a smirk
Scratches my nostrils like spilt perfume
Or varnish; my breath is repossessed.
I am lifted by a mocking thunder,
A palimpsest of grief smeared
On every bone; pinched, dragged
Before a howling jury, I miss the verdict.
They send me whence you came,
The backs of my legs bruising
As they smack against attic stairs.
Alone, my fingers claw a final word.
