He got her drunk very quickly:
holding hands they found the broom
cupboard
where he had control as far as the fall,
the rasping
descent of her tights.
When his hand covered wet hairs
she took
over among furniture wax, dust,
the cloying yellow of polishing cloth.
When he was sick
she comforted him.
He couldn't do
it properly: the club,
the office had left out details of delight.
Satisfied, he would collapse out,
puzzled at why she still squirmed,
held on to him, tears curling into her mouth.
This was something
stories always omitted:
that her joy would seem like pain
when he
focused after release.
In the third week of the relationship
she was tripping on organic acid,
would stop, pick up a rained out
leaf,
would give it into his hand,
full of dead things before
they reached the car.
When they drove she sat with mouth open
as
though photographed on the impact
of a stomach punch, her right hand
gripping
the skin of his leg: he feared her,
slapped out sideways
into her face.
She touched the cut with her tongue,
gurgling
gratitude for the strange taste.
He stood looking through
uncleaned windows,
concentrated on the yellow of his car below.
On the uncarpeted floor, with practice,
she closed her eyes and drew
on the cigarette.
Twill jacket and polo-neck made him sweat,
his
nape skin red from a hair cut.
Between two smokers she smiled up
at him;
as the weed approached he apologised
suddenly wanting
familiar territories:
beer, to put his hand up her skirt.
At the
bottom of the limbed stairs
he booted the cat, a drop kick in their
twenty-five
as he imagined her sylph laugh
gathering chuckles
around the
K Artists/Bands 
Kate Bush CDs in sales 
