the morning after (the Cambridge ball)

A bike, cut clean
across their bickering conversation.
Blinds drawn, banishing the dawn.
Cocktails that clink, grotesquely.
This world does not fit
right- this world is reality

threatening the shape
of both their dreams, imposing its exterior
hideousness. Turning women in ball gowns
into girls about town, smudged make-up
and smeared smiles painted insincere
-less smile than sneer- with jam-and-butter
breakfast-traces strewn across their unripe faces...

this is not the world of visions
nor of hopes - the perfection of a rose,
the sky, their hearts, simply could not cope.

sketch in Cambridge

A woman in a bright red umbrella. A man glancing into the cafe window disapprovingly. A skinny guy, students touching, taking footsteps that dust the pavement but, like icing sugar, can be rustled away with one breath of wind. The trellises of King's College with patterns that run like fancy footwork along the top of the wall, dancing shapes across the stone. The rush of a bike, circular speeding streamline wheels that cut clean across the roadscape. Roses, mine, at home. Darkness and the thin crack of light, banished by blinds. a woman with glasses and a headband and sunshine yellow shoes. The looming sky. Flashes, flashes.