These days
(for Z)

You’re in the wrong house,
wearing another man’s clothes –
somewhere he’s searching, naked and confused.

You wonder who the woman is at breakfast,
those kids…

Car in the drive,
you steal it, arrive at someone else’s
workplace, rifle through his desk,
send out incriminating emails in his name.

You piss, wash unfamiliar hands,
In the mirror your face has bars across it.

5pm. January. Here, in your mind,
a city writhes –
you scour its alehouses, for what,
the scent of a stranger’s skin ?

This snow won’t
settle, fat restless flakes torment
your face, cold turns to heat

flakes

into ice blue flames