Romance

Sits scrunched-up and sleepless
fists poised on the bed
looks down on the woman
and makes lists in his head:
Things done and not done
things said and not said
bare midnight minutes
that are wretched and dead.
In the morning he yawns
rubs his eyes cracks a smile
then his mouth goes all crooked
and his guts fill with bile.
She stretches and wriggles
her eyelids still closed
murmurs and breathes out
and clenches her toes.
He hates without passion
loathing lazy and slack
hates each of the bones
that run down her back.
She wakes up and looks up
bedraggled, bedreamed
her face tight and tortured
by a regime of creams.
And eyes that once met
over food and good wine
meet once again now
cross a surfeit of time.
She turns away,
hunts her slippers
he too turns his back
and both walk like gunmen
ten steps,
turn,
attack.