Spent

 

She’s gone now,

Gone to roam the avenues and backstreets

Of forgotten Manchester,

     Touting her wares

And looking hardwearing for all to see,

I can still smell her

Taste her and feel her,

But I’m left feeling cheap

And dry like the used ash tray

Before me,

 

     It’s there on the

Bedside cabinet,

And thinking of the ash-tray now

As I lay on the bed,

     I don’t really know which

Is the more pungent –

Her perfume or the smell

Of spent tobacco,

 

     In the ash-tray you can see

The cork of Embassy Number 1’s

With red lipstick painted on the ends,

And considering she was only

Here the one night,

She must have stayed awake

As I rasped a drunken slumber

     And I’m getting too old for this,

Too old to be spending fifty quid

On a shag,

     My last fifty quid –

But it has been some time see,

Some years since indulging

And I’m reaching for my fags,

But none are left!

 

I’m picking through the ash-tray

For the big remainders,

My wallet empty of all –

Including the out of date condom,

But the ash-tray bears no fortune

Except for the corks with red lipstick,

And if I scrape away the burnt,

I can gather a small rollie

To tide me by,

 

     I have counted seventeen!

Seventeen red lipstick corks

That indulge only the minimum

Of tobacco,

     I look at the remains

And ask,

Was it worth it?

 

I glimpse my wallet,

I stare the ash-tray down

And thrown with all my might,

It smashes upon the near wall

In a box sixteen by sixteen,

 

     Seventeen red corks

In a sixteen by sixteen room

And I know,

     My lover’s beaten

Me again as the ash

Falls through

The sunrays of a

Dimly lit home.

 

     I draw the curtains tight

To block what sunrays there are,

And as I look back

Upon the cabinet

Where the ash-tray boasted

Its presence,

I see the condom

Unopened, unused

And not only did

She beat me,

She robbed me of

Everything I had.

 

Michael J Waite 7^th April 2013.