Miss Scarlet Always Moves First

In the Stockholm garret
I found an incomplete scrimshaw giraffe
carved from whalebone.

The four legs had been buffed
to a dentist's pearlescence,
the hooves neat as knives

but the neck was just a lumpen
corrugated talon
streaked with rot brown gullies.

I took the notebook from my waistcoat,
turned to a fresh page,
wrote the date

and 'Stockholm',
then '1 x carved giraffe figurine
1' by 5" approx (incomplete)'.

When I sat on the camping bed
(stripped of linen)
motes rushed up

into the room's only sunbeam,
suddenly blazing.
Some might have been her cast off skin cells,

some, just dust.
I looked at what I'd written
then drew a line through the words

before pulling the page from its bindings.
I turned to a fresh page,
wrote the date

and 'Stockholm'
then '1 x carved figurine
1' x 5" approx

(poss. incomplete
poss. giraffe)'
because you never know.