Bed and Breakfast
I smoke in bed, seeing myself in mirrors.
This is not home, where I do not smoke in bed Or see myself in mirrors. In the room through one wall Radio Caroline plays a comic arrangement of Bach Followed by the Destiny Waltz. On the other side Someone coughs and coughs. The water-pipes shudder and bang.
Beneath me, just after midnight, someone has evidently Told a good story in the bar, and the floor vibrates With various laughters, all of them thoroughly male.
Somewhere a groan of intense sexual pleasure, Or perhaps of boredom, or perhaps of despair, cuts through The unintelligible jaunty cadences Of the disc-jockey coaxing the small hours.'The gas fire, Launched with a sixpence into sluggish flame, sends out Its seven flutes of heat, not penetrating Beyond the foot of the bed where the carved veneer Has split into the semblance of a mask.
The wind rattles the rings on the curtain-rod.
That groan, louder now. Yes, they are making love: Deep-throated protestations, with light whispers Urging and holding back and then again Thrusting their confidences through lath and plaster And cocktail wallpaper, long corridors, locked doors Behind which Family and Commercial lie. Sometime round dawn I fall asleep, and dream Of masked bodies in postures so absurd I almost wake laughing. My room is cold, Morning light even colder, as I dress. Downstairs, I choose the grapefruit and the toast. We sit and eat, having survived the night.
ANTHONY THWA1113
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