Wine on the Curtains
Bedsheets and fading light.
And wine on the curtains.
What happened? What time is it?
Sickly fumes stain
the mouths of the glasses.
This is a hirsute slippage
of time, a rod
of asceticism
in a treatise on debauchery.
And wine on the curtains.
And wayward shoes
at the foot of the bed,
and the thwarted desire
for a Franciscan life.
The dry mouth and the bleary eyes
preside over the misery of this
battered body.
And the wine on the curtains.