We play games here
We play them with dice
I recognise the man in the bowler hat
Hand outstretched, beckoning
Two dimensional yet
Deep as the oceans
He is on the top floor of a shiny building with tinted windows
He is sitting in an armchair in my living room
Pressed like dry-cleaned linen
Shiny like apricot jam
He is
Poised
Philosophising about the faucet
The fact that the water will soon trickle
Down
To fill my cup
I am thirsty
We take a walk to Mayfair
My lips
Parched
Parted
Hoping to be quenched
I eye his pockets and wait for silver pennies to spill
To the pavement
Concrete cascades
The properties of the pious
Your life is a just a series of transactions
Self-aggrandising undertakings
Paper smiles and paper bills
They are a game to some
You put me away in a box on Friday afternoon
No matter that my mouth is
Yet
Dry as the savannah
Incarceration is no more than a phantasm you like to read about
For crime-fiction heroes and non-fiction vagabonds
Cells are for spreadsheets and not for sleeping in
You pay not price in tax
Nor time
Condemn the villains
Of your mind
Chance here is feigned
There is no die that is not tampered with
Ownership is ownership is ownership
Yet your pockets are swollen and my cup no more full
I am a sieve and you are a swimming pool
I drink my tears and
Hope for rain
We play games here
We play them with dice
They roll forever and we count the numbers on every side
Illustration by Ruby Randles.