Support the babies' head.

She'd watched German cinema till noon and felt tormented by the dancing chicken. It's companion was making SOS notes instead of musical notes. She was still confused by the glass bowl television and a volt meter.

Out on the street she gathered up the cloud waste in her wool skirt and shoes and settled into a red skinned cow covering to stroke out women with disproportionate thighs or arms. Sweet chilli settled on her tongue for the duration of the afternoon; and in the cold, delayed evening with a four-layered glass window, she shifted impatiently across rumbling train rows.

She discussed ways to fill calendar pages, a washing dance of hot and cold water with powder, and whether the stitches held together the dog's wound. The pencil written response had arrived in the mail and had a similar taste to the cooking. The clock's ticking could no longer be heard over the reverberations of condemnation for the un-enlightened.

When she settled into bed, the air was carrying ghosts' body heat and she counted fire engines with rabbits driving to turn out the light.

Grand Blood

Everytime her nostrils move she can almost feel the blood about to explode down her nose. She hasn't stopped listening to opera music all day. Someone had said to her they disliked opera because the arias were too long, but she loved it, as she pressed an embroidered hanky against her face.

In the mirror occasionally, a white space, her face. She wants to put on her old shoes and glide across the floorboards to the music. Instead she is solitary on a bed, tucked in, with an empty tea cup awaiting more hot water.

Beat beat! The drum declares to her heart. She always related this bit with heartbreak and first kisses. Why, she wasn't sure.

Blood. Her head down. No more tea. Just ice stacked against her spasmed neck while the music went on and rose red spilled into ink blots on a towel.