bass deep light dimming strobe ceiling low jump glass
warm alcohol sweetening wood sticky wet towel laughter
cheering skin tightening brain thinned knee rising blood-
impact ring imprint tooth dislodging clean blur clean blur
clean – but here,
I’m falling into something else, it’s not for you,
this,
not yet, Ava –
I want clarity.
I want to be so clear with you
and look –
I haven’t even told you how we met,
that surveyor more-than-friend and I –
met properly, I mean.
After the cinema, the newspaper,
woof woof
I was working in a pub, a gastropub –
it had a pizza oven, Ava.
I wasn’t in the basement yet.
My first year living in a city.
First year at University.
In halls, we were sixteen to every kitchen.
It was chaos,
but a dream, Ava!
The books stacked up – the Post-its on the pinboard.
Carpet tiles and yellow pine and flaking paint –
Oh hi there, sweet Nostalgia! – the cakey hobs, the partly
melted plastic chopping board, the jagged knives.
The toaster that would spark and make your crumpet
taste un peu toxique.
Our floor was mostly art students
and so the bath in the shared
bathroom would frequently be filled with eggs
or oil
or blood – though fake I think, or animal at least –
or cream.
No one ever cleaned it with anything but water so
it had this ring – this film – a muddiness in the grain of
the enamel. Sort of purple, if purple were unhappy.
And still we bathed, Ava!
