i.

Your face sometimes does that key change:

no one else can hear it, but I feel the floor sticky

with tired arguments that I’ve only just mopped up.
I turn away to the sink, where the water in

this dishrag smells of old bleach, its straightjacket

stale and stiff by tomorrow if I wring it tight.
Most of the time these days I stay mute, lips as tight

as an empty washing line, shoulders slumped beneath

the plughole, drinking dirty whirlpools, waiting  
for the next slammed door you bring home.

My jaw concrete, fillings cracked, leaking

stale washing up liquid at the back of my throat, yet –
ii.
I feel it coming. The day I let these photo frames

be clouded with someone else’s bruises, watch

the tarnish bloom like dusty grapes in front of me
while I find my new reflection upside down,

swimming, stretched, in silver teaspoons,

clattering my ideas awake against my teeth –
I will hear scratching behind the kitchen cupboard

grow to an insistent clamour, then sink my

plumb line tongue, roaring deep, so you understand 
what it is to be me. I will feel the water crash –

that moment when I smash these plates as easily

as waves, and make you watch me leave.