Radiator.
the warmth stretched her veins,
etched them puissantly on
her calves. Their daughter

under the coffee table,
        kicked
the hem of the rug. Guilty.

The furniture
criticizes her limbs

His scrutiny maims
Her concentration forever

She bullies the cat prettily

        Defensively
she rides the mop
& cackles, building
smokescreens of energy

        He couldn’t
carry her enough

In her despotic arms the cat
twitched as if stroked by its sleep

At night he thinned
the child’s wine from
a carafe of mineral water

Boredom tightened her face
so close to tears & sleep
She munches something that is
splintery & loud

She meanders her crayon
on a colouring book:
        the page
cuts her thumb,
thin & deep, & too neat
for belief or lamentation

    *    *    *

The child rammed the
pramside with her head

    *    *    *

The scotch maunders his tongue
        his gestures try
to fling his own speech away

His wife oozes
clammy cleanliness
like a sponge, but

she trims her split-ends absently
with her fingernails in public,
he feels
that her listlessness almost
slanders him

He felt that she had ruined him
            & even
in an oddly Victorian sense:
            so social

it entered his emotions
        slowly
then flooded him like sleep

he floated as it formed him

in a dream he had tried
to murder her
           with his car
           lethargically,
& she scuttled
out of fender-reach like a hen.

            He told her &
she brushed but didn’t quite burn
           his forearm
   with her cigarette,
               but

she always touched him,
       aimlessly,
passing by his chair

He had cashed his indignation
like a cheque. Pity
enervated him

She tossed the clean
towel onto the bed

    *    *    *

She dropped a saucer & watched
the pieces too long before moving

The sun fried the paint into bubbles
The faucet dribbled rust macabrely
The house was never clean

She bit the sides of her fingers
              thoroughly

        Tap.
She crushed some ants
– it was going to rain –
with her foot, & regretted
the formic acid smell
    on her shoesole

She pushed the pram forward, like
a soldier in a bayonet advance

The neighbours nag
each other flamboyantly
in continental tongues, admire

her son. The other child rammed
the pramside with her head.

She rounds the dough in her hands.
I am combining people.

Her somnolence filters the words
to safer proportions

I have crossed the line

The cat punched its head
softly against the window

        Alone,
he would cook breakfast
mysterious crisps of meat
& liquid eggs – proudly,
            demolish
his meal like an argument