Afterwards we laid there a while
him all awkward limbs; left nostril whistling
me trying to recall if he’d said Darren or Darryl
I was halfway decided on Dale after all
when he picked up my toothbrush in his left hand
right hand still down the front of his pants.
He admired a lacquered bowl I kept hairpins in and remarked
‘Nice’in the kind of voice he’d use for some passing blonde
on Rochford Way, then carried on despite my
open mouth
pushing a queerly twisted thumb against the rubber button
’til the brush hummed softly
and in the three a.m. quiet it buzzed a lot louder in his hands
than I had.
I thought germs, I thought bacterial infection
I thought red, swollen gums
I thought cardiac seizure, arrest him and then
incredulous
I watched
as he pressed the soft bristles to his not so pearlies
eyed himself
as too, too much of him loomed large in my magnifying mirror
casually studying a white-headed pimple on his chin and then
with that bent over backwards thumb
(now with matching forefinger)
he pinched a little
winced a little
got a determined look to him
as he smiled, announced in mid-american tone
“Target sighted, range 500 metres, lock n load.. BOOM!
Let’s go home boys!”
squeezed
and the pimple shot its load
sprayed a bloody, soap-scum across my mirror
I thought knife
I thought axe
I thought long, drawn out garroting
as he grinned
foamed at the mouth
spat into the basin then wiped
‘Brite-White’ spittle
onto my fuchsia hand towel
sang ‘Sunday Girl’ in a higher key than Debbie Harry.
He stood there in my bathroom
taking up too much space and making me feel fat
and then he held the brush out toward me
still buzzing
said “Two minutes minimum, and don’t forget to floss.”
Winked.
I think I might have picked him up
(can’t remember) but he left quickly followed by his clothes.
I think a shoe got thrown.
He looked up at me from two floors down
puzzled
I’m stood on the balcony in my oversized Forever Friends tee-shirt
no knickers.
He shouts up “You must be getting your period”
another (matching) shoe is thrown.
The next day there it is
caught
hung upside down in a thorn bush
which is better than he deserved.
I left it there, three days; four days
five
like a traitor’s head stuck on a spike and each time I passed it
I smiled
gleeful
warmed
I was almost tachycardic
and even in December; half hidden beneath snow
it looked the wrong size to me.
Almost May and still I pass it
like a sign above the doorway of a long-empty pub
groaning in a fierce gale
a warning to the ‘sharers’ of this world.
WordBird. Poetry. Mainly. 