Tug Dumbly - Still Life

Still Life

The straightaway sad      

of a just vacated room   

the meekly crook’d neck

of the desk lamp, absolving

the collapsed grey veins        

of the carpet

the tired rape of the curtain     

ripped back over again

Mongol face of the power socket

starving to receive

light switch grimed 

with the history of a sticky fingered 

race to be leaving the scene  

with the burgled goods 

of last nights, last rites. Just a swag

of textured emptiness dumped behind.

They praise a good entrance.

A good exit is not so easily designed 

so say the little floating bananas

of motes, knifed in a sunlit slit

falling to communion,

a glutenless eucharist      

a patina of departure

in which to trace yourself at last   

this was my body, this my blood

offering up a plate of dust.