Nineteen Something Something

It was a vile hopeless winter
Some year before The Millenium
And all the windows were out

We lay in a narrow single bed
Rubbing legs for heat
Ithy thick blankets pulled right up past our noses
Talking of what we'd do once the cold was done
Our poems scrawled upon the walls

And I smelled of many things
But she smelled only of sweat and olives
With hair as lank and greasy as the depressed
Grace to weeks of animal sex at minus five
And sometimes when I'd speak
Through post-ejaculation cigarettes
Talking of my hopes and plans
She would cry
But I don't think because they were so beautiful

And on Saturday afternoons we'd go to the market
Collect squashed fruit to keep our bad skin healthy
Or to make hot lemon tea
And both of us prayed for better times
Even warmer times
So we could dress up
And dance through the streets
And show England what youth was for
Or lose ourselves in antique bookstores
Between P.B Shelley and Richard Lovelace
Reading Milton upside down
In the shadowy shade
Of docked summer days
Smelling the dusty bound books
Which were the history
Of all our rotten dreams
Of writing and being someone
Great
Lovers And makers
Of poesie-shit-scum