Nuage Argente

Nuage Argente –
the name of the house
you betrayed us in,
sucking each other to bits
like two chunks of chopped fish
made fat from feeding on the blood and tears
of other people’s partners
and your own.
What a noise
you must be making
behind the curtains
in the little room.
You sometimes soak the sheets.
You sometimes lie.
You ‘can’t believe you did this’.
Nor can I.
Every day I’ll dip you in my syrup.
I’ll dip you in and force you to be lovable
and roll you around
in trays of hundreds and thousands.
The lowest of the low my mother called them,
men who messed with other people’s wives.
Today’s today.
It will not come again.
Somewhere in your heart
there must be tenderness.
If you’ve got one.
Which they say you have.
You know how farmers
run their hands through grain
to coax large animals to come to them?
I’m running my words
through buckets of prayers like that
to coax something out of the dark
to come and save us.