the muse returns
it’s 10.13pm
and I’m sitting at my desk staring at a blank sheet of paper
when
without a breath of warning
(she once cut her own key)
my muse suddenly appears by my side
nonchalantly picking at her fingernails
with one of those
over-the-shoulder sulky sultry airs
yes, it’s her all right
exuding her smelly essence
of fenugreek and raspberry and syrup and iron and lime
as infuriatingly bewitching as the very day she first broke me in
yes
I gotta play this quintessentially slippery fish
with a measure of skill
(and we both know it)
(if only I knew exactly
what it is she sees in me
then maybe there’d be a bit more equality to the proceedings
(but I know she knows I don’t know
(and I know she knows I know she knows I don’t know)))
“Hi” says she
“Oh, it’s you” says I
“It’s been a while”
(seven months, four days and fifteen hours actually
(but it would be petty, provocative, counter-productive, not to mention humiliating, to admit to such harboured precision))
“Yeah, been busy” says she, still picking at a particularly dirty fingernail
I stare at the blank page before me
as the room slowly begins to spin
“Fancy a glass of wine?”
“You know me. Never say no to anything.”
(Which isn’t true. Which just isn’t true!)
Deep breath
“Guess you’ve got some washing to do”
“A bit” she flicks her head in the direction
of a bulging monster of a sports bag straining at its zippered teeth
“Leave it to me” I say, picking up pen and paper
adopting my most disinterested air
(this is her one weak point
(but I don’t know how to fully exploit it):
she has an intriguingly irrational and impressively absolute aversion to doing her own washing
(but (call me narcissistic and insecure if you must)
I can’t quite believe that this is the only reason
she keeps on coming back to me))
I press my nib into the empty page before me
“There’s enough hot water, if you need a shower”
she sniffs at one of her tufted-and-oh-so-pungently-fecund armpits
and
yes!
(she’s tired, her guard is down)
she bites my bait
and leaves the room to flip flop her sweet weight up my seventeen lucky stairs
as soon as I hear the distant sound of hot water needling her
well-travelled skin
I’m in there
unzipping my way into her bulbous bag
which disgorges its sweaty contents with a deconstipating sigh
yes! rummaging through her spent wardrobe
hoards of adrenaline and dopamine and other such biochemical-emotional compounds
instantly speedwaying through my starved poetic veins
senses bursting like petrol bombs against riot cop shields
furiously searching for tell-tale stains and hairs and clues
snorting at the crotches of her underpants as if they were
impregnated with class A drugs
running my over-eager tongue over salty armpit seams
inside-outing pockets
dragging a curious finger through trouser-turn-up fluff
sniffing and licking and interrogating
every item
like some mildly perverted and intensely jealous poet
Agggggh!
I can taste the sweet rust of another woman
and the stale odour of another man
and look there!
an incriminatingly inky blotch on the inside thigh of
her skin-tight satin trousers
I knew it!
the bastard’s been fucking other poets
I lean against my desk
and ride wave after wave of nauseous, prosaic despair
but then suddenly I hear her freshly-pumiced soles
padding back down the stairs
so I quickly right myself
and begin separating her clothes into lights and darks
lights and darks
whilst I press my tongue hard against my palate
and wring every last molecule of evidence from its spongy mass
and I know exactly how the next bit goes
(and have just about stopped hating myself for its predictability):
she approaches me from behind
and slips her bare arms around my chest
gently tweaking each pavlovianly pert nipple
“You’re too good to me” she murmurs
and I give my best casual shrug
whilst trying to maintain my balance as all the blood in my brain and heart and arteries and veins and capillaries and bones redirects itself to all my tweakable parts and zones
“Been doing any writing lately?” she asks
tweaking them that little bit harder
“Funny you should ask” I gasp for air
“I was just writing a little something when you were in the shower. I, I really should just finish it off”
“No, come, let’s go to bed instead”
(she presses a disarmingly-fresh cheek against mine)
“You can finish it off in the morning”
a bolt of pain shoots the length of me
as she digs her freshly-scrubbed nails in for the kill
and with my dizzily-pumping-and-pounding body I fatalistically concur
following her metronomic arse up those seventeen predestined stairs
both of us knowing full well that
by the morning
she’ll be gone
it’s 10.13pm
and I’m sitting at my desk staring at a blank sheet of paper
when
without a breath of warning
(she once cut her own key)
my muse suddenly appears by my side
nonchalantly picking at her fingernails
with one of those
over-the-shoulder sulky sultry airs
yes, it’s her all right
exuding her smelly essence
of fenugreek and raspberry and syrup and iron and lime
as infuriatingly bewitching as the very day she first broke me in
yes
I gotta play this quintessentially slippery fish
with a measure of skill
(and we both know it)
(if only I knew exactly
what it is she sees in me
then maybe there’d be a bit more equality to the proceedings
(but I know she knows I don’t know
(and I know she knows I know she knows I don’t know)))
“Hi” says she
“Oh, it’s you” says I
“It’s been a while”
(seven months, four days and fifteen hours actually
(but it would be petty, provocative, counter-productive, not to mention humiliating, to admit to such harboured precision))
“Yeah, been busy” says she, still picking at a particularly dirty fingernail
I stare at the blank page before me
as the room slowly begins to spin
“Fancy a glass of wine?”
“You know me. Never say no to anything.”
(Which isn’t true. Which just isn’t true!)
Deep breath
“Guess you’ve got some washing to do”
“A bit” she flicks her head in the direction
of a bulging monster of a sports bag straining at its zippered teeth
“Leave it to me” I say, picking up pen and paper
adopting my most disinterested air
(this is her one weak point
(but I don’t know how to fully exploit it):
she has an intriguingly irrational and impressively absolute aversion to doing her own washing
(but (call me narcissistic and insecure if you must)
I can’t quite believe that this is the only reason
she keeps on coming back to me))
I press my nib into the empty page before me
“There’s enough hot water, if you need a shower”
she sniffs at one of her tufted-and-oh-so-pungently-fecund armpits
and
yes!
(she’s tired, her guard is down)
she bites my bait
and leaves the room to flip flop her sweet weight up my seventeen lucky stairs
as soon as I hear the distant sound of hot water needling her
well-travelled skin
I’m in there
unzipping my way into her bulbous bag
which disgorges its sweaty contents with a deconstipating sigh
yes! rummaging through her spent wardrobe
hoards of adrenaline and dopamine and other such biochemical-emotional compounds
instantly speedwaying through my starved poetic veins
senses bursting like petrol bombs against riot cop shields
furiously searching for tell-tale stains and hairs and clues
snorting at the crotches of her underpants as if they were
impregnated with class A drugs
running my over-eager tongue over salty armpit seams
inside-outing pockets
dragging a curious finger through trouser-turn-up fluff
sniffing and licking and interrogating
every item
like some mildly perverted and intensely jealous poet
Agggggh!
I can taste the sweet rust of another woman
and the stale odour of another man
and look there!
an incriminatingly inky blotch on the inside thigh of
her skin-tight satin trousers
I knew it!
the bastard’s been fucking other poets
I lean against my desk
and ride wave after wave of nauseous, prosaic despair
but then suddenly I hear her freshly-pumiced soles
padding back down the stairs
so I quickly right myself
and begin separating her clothes into lights and darks
lights and darks
whilst I press my tongue hard against my palate
and wring every last molecule of evidence from its spongy mass
and I know exactly how the next bit goes
(and have just about stopped hating myself for its predictability):
she approaches me from behind
and slips her bare arms around my chest
gently tweaking each pavlovianly pert nipple
“You’re too good to me” she murmurs
and I give my best casual shrug
whilst trying to maintain my balance as all the blood in my brain and heart and arteries and veins and capillaries and bones redirects itself to all my tweakable parts and zones
“Been doing any writing lately?” she asks
tweaking them that little bit harder
“Funny you should ask” I gasp for air
“I was just writing a little something when you were in the shower. I, I really should just finish it off”
“No, come, let’s go to bed instead”
(she presses a disarmingly-fresh cheek against mine)
“You can finish it off in the morning”
a bolt of pain shoots the length of me
as she digs her freshly-scrubbed nails in for the kill
and with my dizzily-pumping-and-pounding body I fatalistically concur
following her metronomic arse up those seventeen predestined stairs
both of us knowing full well that
by the morning
she’ll be gone