text for a small ad.


Remember when the world was young, when we lived on Bovril and bacon rind,
those afternoons in cheap hotels, the manuscript, the master plan?
We wrote the rules in ballpoint pen on headed paper and lived by them:
the last cigarette to always be shared, mix only with girls from the library,
like the one leafing through The Golden Bough who told us that magic was everywhere.
Later, she smashed our wristwatches and filled the room with rabbits and doves.
Do you recall the song she sang while teetering on the topmost stair,
her voice resonating like a cello or the ocean somewhere secret in the sluices and conduits?
If you do, send word without delay. Many things depend on it. Please.