Out like a cigarette- and a dip

In the ribcage. Next-to-nothing smoker,

Blank headline with a dog-ear.

Asphalt penitentiary: cars, floozy s,

A crack in littered pavement like an orifice

Of youth. Say hello to Cassiopeia,

Mocking-stars unseen, your ditzy skyline

Tucking nails under skirts and fingers under thighs.

You think about this place, your nightmare

Utopia. Blitz of hats and jackets,

Bliss of bone and drink, spider of

The masses, legs that push the river

Banks of plastic. There’s no room for soul,

Just jaundice on the knees, and cuts

Along the cheek like you drew them there, a stasis

Suspended in a drink.

Bed to lay your skin on, hands

Of copper coins, and a jaundice, as starlight,

Dust of sun, illuminates the cry-life.

You reach for Cassiopeia, her body taut,

Distant. Just a blinker-never-blinking,

Skirt above her thighs and that wild-eyed

Drunkness of novae stars.

Beautiful, she tells you, each world

A new form. Urban kick and stench of

Vigour, the city moths’ flickered veils,

Dip in your ribcage and the hollow of cheeks.

She can’t tell there’s something in them,

They gaunt us like metal,

Hard all-over, a cut-wire, active,

Ready to spark in blue electric.

Touch her quickly, paced screaming

And a cold-enrapture. Fold of concrete,

Office-room, light-bulb dim and a view:

Vapid tyres, shadowed roads,

Starless nights, ed neophytes,

A cab with cancered body.

She never cries. They never do.

Subversive whispers slew her stars.

Venom-night, poison-gauze, her eyes and lips

Lost in dark. Beautiful,

City-blinker, dipping ribs and throat

Constrict. This is it, empty heart,

Lifted skirt and lit-up dark.