Rafters

Taut line of thin manila, rope creaking on dusty rafters swinging.

In your shame.

On the record player, the crackle of stylus on vinyl dry, Nina Simone in a smoky jazz bar, patrons sipping on cognacs oblivious to your indignity, your shame, your cat alone, and a patch of urine dry, the stench at the point when muscles collapsed, no control, the noose nudging breath from a tired, broken body.

Forty years of dead weight, and then like a pendulum still.

It was three days before we knew, the landlord opening the door on Monday evening, the spare key on a green keyring, the stylus maintaining a constant path within the run-out area, spiralling endlessly through the back streets, up and down, round and round.

My Baby Just Cares for Me.

ever mounting debt,
the summons, the court letters,
pills and booze and fags.