The worst witch

The worst witch

I lay backwards on the sofa and you like a bracket
braced me. I stripped off the afghan slipper socks,
dammed my lips to stop the tea you dripped
from hitting my teeth, then the kissing
and the slow slip up of my wrist silver

saw me under the arm of Tim Currie’s cloak;
all peach and orange and opalescent.
We ate pine nuts and tasted a forest,
watched a slug fall off the side of jam jar
and didn’t hear it shrieking,
‘someone stop. These suckers slipping.’