Where did they flee to? Who wrote off their debts
when, scuttled back into a gas mantled past,
they left just this pair of foxed silhouettes
inlaid to the depths of the shadows they cast?
Their off-cuts, spiralled and coiled to the floor,
were the shirts off their backs they left behind
for the brilliantined thief and the red-headed whore
who gave them the pox and robbed them both blind.
Brought out for the hanging, downlit, strung along
with woodcuts and etchings from last season’s sale,
mocked by a stag’s head knocked down for a song
they pose cock-a-hoop on a gold picture rail,
price-tagged in guineas, cockeyed with surprise,
sporting sold stickers, all set for their spree,
two roués quick scissorwork snipped and excised
now fallen among the haute bourgeoisie.
