WORLD ENDS.

A YOUNG MAN AND AN OLDER WOMAN AND SEX IN 1974.

Miss Pinkie
pours me scotch
in a glass

any ice?

no thank you
I slip slow
allowing
to swirl round
my twenty six
year old mouth

she sits down
beside me

she wears that
polka dot
red short dress
and the blue
cardigan
her dyed brown
cropped hair style

want music?

got Mahler?

yes of course
she gets up
and puts on
a Mahler
symphony
on her old
gramophone

as she bends
I spy red
underwear
unattached
to the light
brown stockings

she comes back
and sits down
Mahler starts
lights are low

can I smoke?

sure you can
she replies

I light up
so does she

how is she?
she asks me

who is that?

the slim girl
at the home
pretty thing
all brains but
no knockers
Miss Pinkie
says softly

we just talk
I reply

about what?

poetry
modern art
politics

is that all?

yes that's all

she inhales
and stares cool
exhaling

any sex?

of course not
not with her

why not her?

I don't know

we're silent
Mahler plays
we smoke on
sip whiskies

I study
her two chins
her blue eyes
her thick thighs

the last time
we had sex
she mutters
it was good
on the couch
till you fell
to the floor
half way through

she was right
'bout that night

MAN LIFEBOATS
MAN OVERBOARD
she shouts out
too loudly

she stubs out
the wasted
cigarette
so do I

how about
my big bed?
she asks me

if you like
I reply
thinking of
the slim girl
with the brains
and hot sex
in the back
of her car

that image
in my head
as we walk
to her bed
her plump butt
swaying slow
to Mahler
the moonlight
in the sky

this is how
the world ends
no big bang
just a long
drawn out sigh.