Gutted

Jiffy bags strewn on the bedspread

gape emptiness.

The theatre lighting hanging above haunts

that voidsome room. Cold air and hearts flutter.

Dregs of coffee

sit in the cafetière; spit on a wet pavement.

Pens scribble. Outside a cry from an

infant’s lungs. Hands that may have handled

loose change, caressed lovers,

broken a fall, now convey thought-trains

into shapely words. Here

passion is being given up and offered in exchange

for numbers. “Guard the doors,”

Clare was told. In the end, all are kept

from singing out

by the flash of light on the spectacles

of the scrutiniser.