I wake to a shoal of empty beer bottles-
scale-less green fish sitting in summer romance
along my window-sill
sunk deep in a familiar chair, patient
as time
drifts
through
the open window-

offered on its shoulders
is clipped chatter
and car keys clapping about pockets-
urgency as usual lacing the school run,
the pop and suck of a trunk-
the heady crunch of crushed stone
that signifies flight
out of here
the place home
to my two onion halves
sitting surly and morose
in robes of unravelling cling-wrap
steeped in stagnant thoughts-
pondering
who will be the first

to go