Being a tin spoon of a man, I don't promise to be true. I am likely to stir things out of comfort. I am telling you this now, over our glass of shared sherry, so that you may understand something about me, before we broker any deals. I broke my promise and kept its pieces for a good long time in the striped jug. The I made the long journey from there to here. What sort of comfort is there in a life lived in translation? We must have had the trappings of a life, once: baby's slippers, wedding cake, fly-swats. But now the best that I can offer you is a broken shoe and three conkers.
You look wary. Come, lay your head upon my breast. can you hear the beating of the drums? It is my heart sweetly banging. I sometimes think it will go on forever, that it will still be drumming when the birds cease to sing, when the grass withers, when what's tucked under the ledge of your desire swells and threatens to drain the lake of your lust. Let me take you to the house of thirty sombre rooms. The bees have wintered there, sweetening the walls of their lives with their honeying. Come with me one weak white day and I promise we will be happy again.
Being a tin spoon of a man I cannot promise always to be true, to provide you with a bone-white aga, velvet cushions for your head or a patched sail for a bedspread. But I can bang the gong of heaven as it hangs in the sky. And I can ladle out happiness. And I can make something stir in you. Being a tin spoon of a man I have my uses.
The copyright of this post belongs to Claire Steele
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