Such a biro way of being in a briefcase.

The courts are actually not very fair
on matters missing out letters
pulling the plug hole and then the bum skin
sticks in and the whole thing about newsprint
making a mess of an angry disposition.

Well, you should see the way the dirt can crack
in Bolivia, the sun tan stretch of a dust road
and the feet ache from the tread tread tread of water trecks;
she thinks she saw something in the mud flares
some deep strum, a mandrake flipping, or the lip of a lever

and later in a tea house she learnt she could cope with lacking,
and when she reached home asked for the shutter up night
and child rivet angry streets, finding them missing in all things
she threw things at the news box
kept her jewellery in a cereal wrapper
washed her pants in barley water,
tried to make her mother see that flying to Newcastle was just unnecessary
even though
the
economy
of waste was just so convenient.

The drip of static Sundays with the cow cloth
got so ageing
and she could see herself in a cabinet chasing colleagues
out at wine nights. Those trousers seemed so snook around the crotch
the jib of the jacket just above her label breasts
and the important filing folders under each arm marching
into court rooms, ballet banana backed
comma bobbed, wrists flexed,
such a biro way of being in a briefcase.

In a gift book on dead waterways
she heard a lever kettle click
and the corn barns closed their fists
in her striding stamp dreams
and all noisy things got out the bath and dripped on the lino
and the radio with its chorus suddenly seemed
to be the gravy way out.

After the palms pounding her breath box
she lets the examiner circle her wrists
push her fringe back with his fine fingers.
give her one last kiss.
She knew Martha pulled the plug and wiped the gravy mud off her eyelids
she knew Ruth got given her best shoes and mug
she knew the mirror muttered that machetes are not nearly
so pissing easy to manoeuvre as hair tongs.