Sleep was a paltry wafer
after we’d come back
from watching the tide
expose the beach’s softer
districts & the sun
beginning to spill through
a murder-hole in an
architrave of clouds. The
open half of a lemon had
been left in the kitchen,
weeping into the grain of
the table. The table
corresponds with the
woody pips; the lemon
corresponds with a
breakfast of fried eggs &
butter melting into a slice
of toast. It donated its
other half to the piquancy
of gin & tonics. I squeeze
out what’s left of the juice
& a paper cut I didn’t know
I had begins to sing
Puccini’s Vissi d’Arte.
