When you clean a place
it begins to belong to you.
Like sex, this is terrible
unless you want it.
Today I read a poet hedge
there might be no bad sex.
Who’s safe enough
to hazard that guess?
Use ash to rub smoke’s ghost
off of windows, open
both doors to let sea winds
drive breath of the dead
fire down a cliff.
Last night’s stories lasted
till morning, longer
than our piled-up turf.
Kay’s midlands summers,
her hair in paper curled
for Sunday tight enough
to hurt, her grandma
starching shirts
to put on for the pub
where only men went
after work & after shaving.
Blue balls of bleach.
There are five hundred
shades of white,
Granddad one day
stated. His wife took
the claim straight.
She gave him a different
shirt, boiled the declined
article all the next day
in a cauldron on an iron
crane over open flames.
Their stone fireplace
was like the one
we gathered at last night,
deep in drink
& safe from any man.