Quicksilver

Bleak yellow street lights
wearing necklaces of rain

pearl against the streak
of finger painted windows

overlaid
with quicksilver brocade
and nests of spider eggs.

Where once this place
was abandoned, in a room,

the creak of floor boards
drowned by thunder's boom,

revealed
in shadow and lightning strobe,
paint-by-number puddles trace

around two who appear to sleep
soundly in the aftermath of a tryst

causing
the panes to mist and condensate,
and moisture trickling down

brittle wallpaper paste and folds of
stained flesh midst mottled
reflections

as the sound of rumbling deep
in the sagging rafters stumbles,

tumbling,
endlessly passes the hours.

Pelting on a roof of tin,
turning storm into showers.

Descending
by the score within, moths alight

and silently creep over the
still life bodies in their keep.


The presence of moths: symbols of death.