the end of the night
Think you there was or might be such a man / As this I dreamed of?
(Antony and Cleopatra, Act V Scene II)
the thighs of my skinny vodka are barely covered
with Coke, short-skirted sugar in my mouth,
this nightclub is a fermented kingdom of clay;
you take my hand
we are suddenly outside
I am shivering inside my hurried jacket,
throbbing music aches like a distant hangover
we stagger against an Irish February towards the
seafront where this night wind is tight, black as liquorice
chewing at my ankles
lamp posts rattle as we stand close to them
boats clink and roll like empty beer bottles
against the harbour wall
your breath is lager and I can taste cigarette ash
feathered, settling
on my lip as a dying bird,
there is no shelter from what you say next –
I watch as you walk back up the hill
tornadoes spill from your pockets
whistling whilst
I gulp against this pitch
I want to scoop myself back into a plastic bucket but
these wet cloying clumps are stuck in my throat and eyes and everywhere
so I stand in the rain, bladderwrack hair,
salt gusts are dirty ropes flaying my face,
low clouds have drunk too much of the sea
my heart hammers cracked like a useless pink spade –
sandcastles of what I wanted to say to you collapsed against my ribs
Olga Dermott is from Northern Ireland. A former Warwick Poet Laureate and member of Room 204, she has had poetry and flash fiction published in a range of magazines including Rattle Magazine, Magma, Paper Swans Press and Under the Radar.
@olgadermott