And He Cried Out To the God of Austerities Who Said On the Seventh Day You Shall Tax, Pillage and Burn
Melissa Lee-Houghton

With a new equinox comes many bad photos of a red blob which they say is The Moon
Eclipsed. I nest deeply and into my need. I make a large hole to swallow.
Poverty is a loop, not a knot and not an empty cup—not fillable;
There is no opening; just an exit you can turn on and turn into
Time and again—and I turn my back and the whole day disposes of itself.
Crushes itself into a figment of someone else's imagination.
I have been here before as an affirmation meant to ward off evil
And only ever ends up beckoning blame. The man in the sweater says
Do not judge, do not blame; do not call something Good—
To say something is Good means something must be Bad and that is Wrong.
I pray each night to the god of faulty circumstance.
He answers If only you'd thought of that before and
When will you learn and I tell him
I'm sorry and Nobody warned me life would be this hard.
When I'm stricken he laughs. And the magazines don't want me
And neither do the papers. I'm sick into someone else's soul.
They cut me some slack. I ride a flogged pony into the centre of the town
And someone else's sense of time makes things awkward.

Carry me, in all my romance and my homemade satin dress
Off to the outskirts of somewhere I don't know. I want to be abandoned properly.
I want to be helpless for real and not second guessing the state.
I win awards and my hair falls out in clumps and blocks the drain.
I dye my hair the same colour as my heart and the sun shines in.
You say you love me well break me. When you're gentle I lie back breathless.
The tablets take the sleekness off all the light; they take my sex drive
And leave me thirsty and mute. I called out but no-one came until bedtime.
I drove to the city to have it off with a whim and they called while I was out.
The bad actor was my favourite.
All the good actors left me cold. He said The bad actor did that thing with his hands
That all children do when they are acting. I liked it.
Shave off my edges and rub me in butter.
And drown me in fat. I eat too much and I sleep more.
No-one who ever slept away their life was ever happy about it.