At the bench again – match fingers working from memory –

you’re re-living last night’s ostrich feathers

the colour of sky that hangs over the factory’s high ceiling – 

glue and dust growing now like an extra skin –

pretty – weren’t you? In the music hall, everyone said so.

 

The double-ended lucifers in your fist

require only friction – not along the red edge

of the box but anything at all and you think

of this when the other girl has sixpence swiped

for a tray that topples from her hands.

 

Only friction – a bright fissure through the air

that sounds like breaking before the flame finds its way

       –      and you made it yourself, didn’t you?

 

Admit it – you’re becoming ostrich egg –

bulge under the jaw and tooth-cracking sound –

pushing scared fingers into your throat where it swells,

you’re heavy enough to drown /

growing new bones / you are incubating – pipping –

 

breaking up when you bite down

               but last night alone

you sang the words at the ceiling

after the show and              thought of the ostrich feathers

that moved on the dance floor as if they could take flight –

the blue of the great outdoors –

 

with matches breaking in your wet fist before raining down

you hear the same old music play now as you push through –

                through this cruel eggshell –

                a flame’s fissure through the air that sounds like breaking

 

they’re scavenging pennies from you but you’re

                suddenly starving and sobered up

                balled up and matchbox-small

                                  like a fist               for the fight