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It’s the staleshit smell hanging under the perfume in the white-tiled shopping-mall toilet
It’s the bony old cat in the house of the chubby-faced students
It’s the streak of smog above the blue and white beachfront
It’s the distant siren
It’s the one string that won’t stay in tune
It’s whoever grew old, then young, then died
It’s the black edge around the heart we repeatedly draw
It’s my one purple nail
It’s my arms not reaching
It’s going back out there

(First published in Cottonmouth)