(after Frank O’Hara)

DIAL TONE / So -
Mercury is shoved in on the coffee shop shelf next to Innocence, right,
And the stranger in the queue didn’t sleep ‘til three.
Willowbrook potatoes in the supermarket look like the hands
Of my dead grandfather - it’s Midday, noon. The couple
Buying tickets at the box office trade sweet kisses and
My flat white leaves brown rings of saturn on the cover of
Paradise Lost. December’s volcanic activity
Pushes me to open my phone. It blinks at me:
HERE’S WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL VULNERABLE:
(Your voice, your hands, your body, your being.)
Bad timing - I’m not ready for any of that yet.
I am back in the grocery store and I remember you, Å.K,
The way you make me laugh. I love this life, this
Living, just - I’m not ready for it yet. Not yet.

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when truth put on her fair-weather coat
and walked out of the world
the ocean choked on her spit.

every spoon in the drawer was bent out of shape
the knives were suddenly razor-sharp and poised
with cuing wickedness.

people woke up to find clock faces
dripping with blood. all the calendars
were aflame.

no-one spoke the same language,
individual tongues made
individual sounds.

music died. vhs tapes developed
their own form of worms. oh,
the cats were eyeless

though we did find their new,
cavernous sockets
easier to look at.

‘it’s so hard to be a man these days,’ said men.
‘it’s so hard to be rich these days,’ said the rich.
‘it’s so hard these days,’ said everyone else.

children grew to be three storeys tall
and blundered about with blinkers on
destroying city infrastructure

quite by accident. the prime minister
reclined on deckchairs in coastal towns
as they crashed into the sea.
banks boomed, radiant
on highstreets. meanwhile schools
quietly shut themselves up.

‘no need for those!’ said the government.
‘we’re trying out distance learning, where
we all learn to be distant from each other.’

the scent of roses boiling in window boxes
left nerve-endings raw.
that’s why the violence started

we thought. big red buttons
appeared on phone screens and
mothers birthed briefcases.

convictions were short-lived
but cradle-tax was not. babies
became dear.

bugs crawled into cribs
and wailed their fury
into infant ears,

and we all cried out in our sleep
for a god who was
stopped at the border.