The Ofi Press Magazine

Poem by Stephen Watt (UK- Scotland)

Published in issue 32 of The Ofi Press

Orgy Etiquette

Listen. The air crackles like wizard’s fingers.

The living-room smells acrid, lingers like unwanted visitors

implanted in this dollhouse.

Peacock feathers gust in the snores of frogmouths

who lie on the floors next to the fag douts

            and spider-drowning wine bottles.

A reversed, out-stretched figure glistens in coconut oils.

Renegade jewellery sparkle beneath the couches

like unavowed secrets, sucked from spices of flesh,

pouches of trinkets spat into the unkempt carpets

of magpie nests.

This is orgy etiquette

if you happen to be a guest.

Last night’s symphony is reduced to a string quartet.

The slow, grotesque strip of a heavy burlesque act

contorted itself into a heady mix of alkaloids

and cocaine extracts. Instant Polaroids

            slide between the memory cracks.

Thin, transparent sheets trace outlines of shapes,

crevices and swellings, rippled only by the scratching

of sensitive bare feet,

warmed by the vexing sun’s caress.

            I wait for the stirring, the memory unscrewing,

            and the regrets to manifest.