an irregular pattern mottling a tiled kitchen floor,
like liver spots on the house's skin.
hands
trembling with foreboding
wiping furiously, unsteadily
at the second mess of the evening.
a third rising up
in my throat,
threatening to spill over.
into words or bile, i don't know.
i can't tell the difference anymore.
a memory rising up too—
the sound
of shattered glass (mess the first),
of shouting,
but worst of all,
of awful, awful silence.
the sickly, metallic stench hanging stagnant in the air.
a storm is raging around me but
somehow
that odour manages to remain.
[i can see the shards of a broken girl still lying there
even now
when the lights are low
and the glass and the blood have
long been cleared away]
