1

The models walk,
high-heeled as curlews
stalking a narrow shore.

We watch, spectators
at a slow-motion tennis match,
as they turn,

flex the featherless wings
of their shoulders
and slip between the curtains,

leaving the crocodile pit of cameras
flashing their teeth for more.

II

I leave you sitting to the mirror
like a pianist to the piano,
lifting the mascara brush
to paint your lashes from fine to bold.

Pulling the door on this scene
I walk down the corridor
to wait in the bar for you to join me.
And when you do, it happens once more;
The fall of the dress, the jewellery,
early stars against the dusk of your skin,
all of it leaves me surrendered,
if just for a second, as you walk in,

to the spell, the artful hocus-pocus,
and to you standing there
one shoulder bare,
setting the room about you out of focus.