Chatting her up

A boy and girl drag themselves to the back of the bus.
He mumbles the slurred syllables of methadone.
He intends to impress his dark haired, dark eyed girl
who folds her hands like a nun and contemplates the windscreen wipers
while he displays for her admiration
the tapestry of his suicide attempts.

He took the sharpest kitchen knife to bed
mother in an oooh of horror found him too soon.
On the empty stairs of the flats at two a.m.
he slung a rope across a bannister and would have launched himself
but for a man from God-knows-where hunting down a deal.
I would jump from the balcony he says but with my luck
they'd have built a fucking swimming pool there before I hit the street.

She giggles, then sits in silence
watching the rain smack against the windows
thinking perhaps of sipping multicoloured cocktails
by hot Spanish poolsides in the healing sun.

Published, 2003, in Ambit, Issue 172.