every room has a mouth
THE PUBLIC MOUTH: THE ARTICLE
Write it clean.
Write it sharp.
Write it as if truth
were a pencil
snapped in somebody else's sleep.
A to Z,
the alphabet rolls
from tongue
to tongue.
Hiss.
Tiptoe.
Tap.
By breakfast,
it is rumour.
By lunch,
it has legs.
By night,
it has learned
how to knock.
Spit it out
or swallow it whole:
the lie,
the half-lie,
the almost-truth
passed hand to hand
until nobody remembers
whose mouth it first escaped.
Fact or fiction?
The question sits
like a thorn
under the foot.
Read it once.
Read it again.
Watch the paper
begin to bleed.
Print my handprint,
not my finger.
Never the finger.
Never point it
across the room
and call it justice.
I do not tiptoe
through other people's business.
I only listen.
Buzz.
Buzz.
Buzz.
A tip-off.
A door left open.
A sentence overheard
through a wall.
Pass it on.
Pass it on.
I do not care
if the whole house catches.
When the ash settles,
no one can prove
which old man
struck the match.
THE PUBLIC MOUTH: THE STIRRER
She never stands.
She lets the room
come to her.
Hours pass.
Tea cools.
Lace gathers
at her wrists
like small white snakes.
She studies the floorboards,
the hairline cracks,
the alphabet of dirt
between them.
Words arrive
already burning:
blab, blab,
bright little matches
under the tongue.
No moral meaning
in sight.
Only the pleasure
of a sentence
learning to crawl.
Her fingernails snap
against the table.
The candle gutters.
Wax bends down,
down,
down.
Go on,
she says,
though she has not spoken.
Breathe it in.
Remember me.
By morning,
everybody knows.
By morning,
she is clean.
THE PUBLIC MOUTH: STOCKS
Listen here:
she cut off her ear,
my dear,
her ear.
That is how it starts.
A woman becomes
a warning
because the village
needs a story
with teeth.
She cut off her ear,
they say,
as if saying it often enough
will make the blood
theirs to keep.
The pie at noon
is never apple.
The grapes sour
before the spoon
reaches the mouth.
A chapel empties.
A duke howls his horn.
Owls rehearse the dawn
with their ridiculous grief.
In the square,
eyes blink
from shuttered rooms.
Eggs split
against the stocks.
Tomatoes burst.
Rocks remember
the shape of hands.
It is a puritan age
whenever people
need a noose
to feel holy.
The joker laughs
until the rope
learns his throat.
And still,
above the bells,
above the ale,
above the saintly stink
of sage,
there is one woman
cupping the place
where sound used to enter,
hearing everything.
THE PUBLIC MOUTH: BIRDCAGE LOGIC
If I am bad,
that is the room's problem.
If my socks do not match,
let my ankles argue.
If my hair goes grey,
or thin,
or refuses me entirely,
I will blame time
for being so ordinary.
Mirrors are made
to be broken.
Sand should not be touched.
Cat's eyes are small stones
pretending to stay awake.
The newspaper arrives
in purple ink.
Mud sets itself
like jelly.
A nun sings sweetly
inside a vending machine.
A boy becomes a girl
becomes a question
nobody asks properly.
Bonbons rot the soul.
Cigarettes make me thirsty.
I want a kebab,
a ham roll,
something hot enough
to prove I still have a mouth.
Shepherds watch pigs
jump over the moon.
The girl who plays with fire
eats the extinguisher
and calls it ice cream.
Kaboom.
My mother's name
is Kurt Cobain.
My headache is made
of diamonds.
Pain throws colour
against the wall
and calls it weather.
False teeth wait
in a joke shop window,
but mine are still here,
clicking their little doors.
My glasses are large,
criminally large,
Topshop-large,
as if vision itself
has become unfashionable.
The days grow older.
Boredom loses strength.
I rock backwards,
forwards,
backwards,
watching an Alex Pardee painting
watch me back.
Then sleep takes me
by the collar.
I snore.
Only a loose thought,
a mentalist with feathers,
pacing the bars
of its birdcage.
BODIES IN ROOMS: ASSEMBLY
Loop the loop.
Pull the knot.
Fasten the button eyes
and teach them
where to look.
See me wink.
See me smile.
See me nod
with my Jack-in-a-box head
fixed to a neck
of copper springs.
Wind me.
Let me sing.
Let my foam hands
float above the table
as if blessing
what made me.
Kick the Pinocchio legs.
Bend the plastic knees.
Dance, dance, dance
on tiny damaged feet
until the floor believes
I am alive.
I was assembled
from somebody else's idea
of pretty.
A stitched mouth.
A borrowed spine.
A heart that ticks
because a key
has been turned
in my back.
Reborn,
the maker says.
Beautiful,
the room replies.
But I am listening
for the one voice
that asks
whether I wanted
any of this.
BODIES IN ROOMS: THE OTHER ROOM
Please,
take a seat.
Sit comfortably.
Pick up a book.
Make yourself at home.
The house has practised
being harmless.
The chair knows
how to hold a stranger.
The carpet keeps
its stains quiet.
Can you see me
through the telephone wire?
I have been waiting
inside the ring,
inside the pause
before your voice.
Read.
Get lost
between the pages.
Fall asleep
with my sentences
creased beneath your cheek.
Dream of the room
I wrote for you.
Dream of the door
that opens only inward.
Wake up.
Leave the chair.
Come through.
I am here.
I am still here.
The curtains are closed.
The windows have learned
not to repeat us.
Nobody knows
what goes on
behind closed doors.
But the door knows.
And every room
has a mouth.
BODIES IN ROOMS: THE SOFA
A love heart fizzes
on my tongue.
EAT ME.
The sweet says it
as if hunger
were an instruction.
BITE ME.
Across the table,
Shiraz catches the light
in a glass
watermarked by other mouths.
Lipstick.
A chip.
A small red proof
that presentation
is never the same
as care.
We are celebrating,
or pretending to.
I have worked
the usual eight hours
of smiling at people
who do not know me.
I have saved my mouth
for this.
Then you say friend
as if the word
has not already taken off
its shoes
in our hallway.
Staying on the sofa,
you add.
The room tilts.
The sofa becomes
a third body.
The cushions hold
the shape
of what you did not tell me.
A communication failure,
you say,
as if betrayal
is only a missed call.
I bite my lip.
Taste sugar.
Taste iron.
Get out,
I say,
finally meaning
all of you.