sheen

Alison paints with a nail brush;
the green on her fingernails grows;
a lushness spreading like mosses
on sand as the glitter-sheen flows
from her nerves to the skin on her fingers
like streams leaving summer’s ease,
their ripples beginnings of shivers
as autumn’s chill drives the breeze.

I uncork a cheap spanish red,
the junkie tipple we choose
so we’ve cash left to abdicate will
to potions as precious as booze
’cause tomorrow wants us rolled up
in fresh green fifty pound notes
to shoot up the world’s noses,
buy vintage to sap down its throats.

But Alison says we’ve been stifling
our moonbeams in tiny phials;
our angels are freezing in birdbaths
and fainting away on the tiles.
The sheen of her skin is cracking,
my world is ice and sea;
its surface splinters like varnish
as winter sets her free.