Time

‘I don’t want to sleep with you

but sometimes I need you to sleep’.

You say this in an old ghost-swilled pub

where they strung lights over the bar.

Christmas in autumn – that precocious

annoying child cloying for hangovered attention.

Your eyes stew grey as the sea, walls

and bored sky yawning half past five.

My lips stain with the colour of truth

        – it is time to go home.