Crushed Velvet

Your crushed velvet dress lies,
In a mess, on the floor
Along with all the semi-precious colours.
As distant from me as you
You pay your dues and
Get out,
Wracking my soul with a cold sigh.
At least in a museum a rope of that fabric
Is all that keeps me from your jewellery.
Notwithstanding, a rope of that colour
Would secure precious justice
For what you could not possibly have done.
For me, at least, you did inveigle
Chance and circumstance
Into one solid motion of your finger:
‘Come’
Led by a velvet rope
I declare ‘I do’.
Yes, of course you do, like I enjoy eating
Raw meat without a serviette.
The colour pales from your face,
Like April dawning, when I suggest
Seeing in the new day together,
Sin exploded onto the canopy of the dawn,
That is mute, picking its moment to interrupt.
You collect your things, also the monkey on your back
And slip your dress back on, concealing all.
Strange, how I feel, I don’t mind, because
I have unlocked a code
Of an artefact
That is joy of man’s desiring
And it only took me one slip of a velvet rope
To do it.

Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the small parish of Mourneabbey. After several years working as an archaeologist, she now lives in Cork where she writes full-time. Her works include the poetry collection Continuity Errors, published by Lapwing in 2010 and a novel, The Quest for Lost Eire, published by Authorhouse in 2014. She has also been published in a number of journals, most notably Revival and Census.

TJ Edson is the Art Director of Oddball Magazine and a volunteer at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery. He has also had work appear recently in Terrarium.