Her evening baritone
dressed in solemn winter wear
stolen from a Catholic funeral
She wears the colours
of Whisky at the bottom of
an alcoholic’s gut
the thick sludge of cirrhosis
of the liver and of the heart
So abysmal
in a room of brightest lights
burning through
unblinking corneas
her guiles are ashamed
they best remember
old men regrets from
family holidays
and they don’t trust
her to keep on
this anaemic song
that causes so much distress
in those moments
of pure empathy
where she walks
in wet clothes
through my apartment door
and that is how
the evening draws
to a close
at the end of a distant
October, down the river
that begins nowhere
and ends at my doorstep.
