THE RIGHT TO TURN

See the winters breath,
That cried to sleep
With the sun that lent its decaying arms
To the stooping forked shoulders
Of the mangled trees.

We are married she said.
Married till I wash the dirt off my finger.
We are looking for a shiny piece of nothing
To save our lives,

As we walk to the arena
Of gaudy freaks of mouth
Dribbling drink.

Make love to some with sin
Some with love
Some with gin.

Carve out nothing u have ever seen.
Buy a new bust.
That will adorn some corner
Of a prestigious institution
In your pedagogical mind.

She tells me not to turn
But I do.
She freezes half clothed,
A cloud of perfume
Halo on her breasts.
Whisky on her rye.

Dream up a sage
Who never turns when
She says don’t.
So I turned the last time she said don’t.
Lost my eyes to the sage who
Never died.

The right to turn.
They used it in the wars,
Until they all got killed.
In the shower
They got billed .
For all the water they lost off their backs,
Yet ,they did in the tower,
Let some dreg disappear
From the cursed prison of fortune.

The right to turn was marred over years
Into being just an innocent act
Non-malicious intent
Yet what it was a singularly
Capable destroyer of the waist, of the handle that jiggled along
Around her belly.
That twist that broke his spine under the yellow lorry
The lorry that turned to escape,
Being turned into a killing machine.

Why did we die when we said we would,.
We could have always cheated.
Always lied.
Always denied the right to turn
Into dust.
Always cried.
Virgin mannequins of bland delight,
turned their right to turn into sagging masters
of another generation of sex goddesses,
into a race of embroidered jeans
in a third world country.