Cowboy bar—they said, like, the wild west—

polished up panelled wood and plastic,

pool table with its lawn of peeling green baize

and the shrk-shrk of shuffleboard.

Vodka cokes fuzzing up my teeth and my eyes

edge-glazed like a migraine and

music so loud I’m lipreading, missing half

of anyone’s slurred words.

Imagine if they’d had drum and bass

at the OK corral. 

I watch the boy/girl easy split,

and me pissed, unkissed, dancing

in my cylinder of green light—

beam me home, mothership.

Wish you were here, wish we were two little aliens

in an egg, our bodies squishy and joined at the hip,

joined at the lip, unreal, slick.

Weird enough, wired enough to hold onto each other,

to slither across the dancefloor, to play pool.

Our own rules. 

The small hours come and I lie down in them,

I stare into space.

You, twelve thousand miles away,

eating your lunch.