Trim flounders in the corridor,
point catching pile while lace once tacked
to white collar and mustard cuff
flails like a moth with a grey-moon wing
nipped through by a murderous beak.
Too little promise in the curl of air,
too much decay on its breath
to signal the swing of a door – only
drafts from the cellar, the chimney,
from the spider-cracks framing
Victorian fittings and dry-rotted sills.
Tucked into the trunk, our silence was closer,
a shawl of spun of waiting
for the stir, then the clap of three brass clasps,
for the bright lifting flight to table or knee
between footlights and curtains,
even the dust too buoyed to settle in the spot.
Arrayed behind grate and glass –
occasional audience a shuddering mass
stepping back from unblinking eye,
rigid grin, imagined ragged turn to face –
like starving dogs at the station we sit,
alone with no one to throw.
