Mark flies home to Baby
for Mark E. Smith

You were on my cassette up in my ears with your

violence. My walkman was a scratchy portal straight

to your gammy mouth. I liked it, and the tight sound

of the drums, mounted with the skin of pigeons.

I was also frightened but not of anything.

The time the kids spat on my woollen shelf and

stoic as a pink sparkler, I knew you knew. In your

tank top, casting flames from your ancient hanky.

Something dumb and vicious that ran through all of it.

The ditches laced with porn- distaste in the kitchen,

I knew it. In our world apart, the southern quarters,

we knew the flailing, social hurt. I hid in woodlands

and heard the silence, we were better after all. You

in the gnarled old roots, a latchkey in the darkening

cover and I, proper with my bronze spoon, my

residuals, my uncanny face all flattened by

witches and tarmac. Now gone, into the farflung

corners of the disco- cosmic gargoyle, rings

of smoke around your ankles like A-OK, and

up in your thorax, the flickering burden of joy.