Two Step
Men dancing upside down,
on the roof of the music hall above The Grapes.
That’s what I heard;
men dancing upside down in a pub without radiators.
How do they hold their drinks, or keep their wallets
from falling out I asked. No,
he says, they leave them by the door
with the line of girls who are bored of men
dancing upside down without so much as asking
if it would be an inconvenience, and the band
are playing on their side, and the barman
is pouring Cointreau neat into smoky glasses.
There isn’t even a dog outdoors
that’s not growling at the tinny sound
upstairs, through the open windows.
Now like an oracle I sat in the chair with the broken slats,
like my bed at home which folds into the wall.
I sleep on the floor when I roll in,
in the morning I wake up with my face on the door.
What a great time in my life this was what a great
vision I had seen on the roof of my flat,
with its plaster cracks and orange stains and sighs, oh
the whole place is sighing around me.