A collection of poems and other writings...

Monday 29 September 2014

A Smear Campaign

I saw you,
you know.

You didn’t see me
but I saw you.

I was walking past
and you were sat in Emma’s Café
with your back to the window.

There were others in there, too –
an engaged couple,
engaged in tea and toast.
You made sure they could not witness
what I saw.

But I saw,

and I know what you did.

And if you knew that I had seen
I hope you would have been
mortified.

From the front –
the fair facing front –
the innocent public facing front –
it would have seemed that
you were just fondling
your spectacles,
just resting your eyes perhaps
from too long use of
an outdated prescription.

But from behind
I could see
that the right arm of those
spectacles
was delving deep,
deep into the orifice of your right ear
searching the dark recesses
for that itching
bitching
wax.

And I could feel your relief
from
that gnawing,
teeth-clenching
itch
as the shovel-ended
spectacle blade
performed its
miraculous mining.

But I’m no fool.
I would not hang around to see the
denouement,
the moment of
spectacle,
the grand reveal
as laden arm
was slowly withdrawn
from now empty ear.

But how was your tea?

And where is that load now?

Was it surreptitiously wiped on a paper napkin
and left with your dirty plate?
Or was it smeared across your open palm
and then hands rubbed together
until it had
seemed 
to disappear
only actually to be spread
homoeopathically
across every
handle you handle
every
surface you brush
every 
child's head you stroke
every 
barehanded loaf you hold?

Your efflorescent
effluvium

lubricating the world.

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