I am trying to throw things

away. Say, these two cups,

his always green, mine always blue,

in the long dark the two of us,

me stacked inside him, or him

stacked inside me. I fear they’d shatter now

on separation, bright bundle

of cutting shards. 
What even is this –

museum of the artefacts

of people who did not love me

enough? See here, this

teal-handled knife, from a caravan set.

How careless she buttered her bread then,

bikini bottoms ruched like a shower cap,

face cast down in the slide frame, still years away

from fool enough

to imagine a child. 
But I wake in the night, afraid I

really did throw those cups away.

Lurch to the kitchen.

They are here. The moon is senseless

on the neighbour’s car. I am part

of a chess set and all the other pieces

are misery; I cannot discard them;

they cannot discard me; there is only

gambit and check, gambit and check,

back in the box and start again,

            and what if I just threw

everything from a high place then

ran down and set it alight? I’d have

to buy more, and all I seem to have

in my purse is this one pearl button

and this tie-pin, slightly rusted.