The Party’s Over

 Oily scraps of veg, drabs of bread
and napkin shreds,
red wine, salt and cigar butts
and I’m drink-dazed for sleep,
drained with the weight
of my own unspoken words.

And in the small room where three flames burn
on the green fish candlestick
that I cycled seven French miles to choose for myself
at the cost of several hundred francs,
I spit on my finger and thumb
and draw down the darkness.

Jenny Hockey