Bedsheets and fading light. 

And wine on the curtains. 

 

What happened? What time is it? 

 

Sickly fumes stain

the mouths of the glasses. 

 

This is a hirsute slippage

of time, a rod

of asceticism 

in a treatise on debauchery. 

 

And wine on the curtains. 

 

And wayward shoes 

at the foot of the bed, 

and the thwarted desire 

for a Franciscan life. 

 

The dry mouth and the bleary eyes

preside over the misery of this

battered body. 

 

And the wine on the curtains.