COMFORTS FRIGHTEN ME

So smart looks the stereo­-
set on the polished marble
top, the vase filled
with leafwhite lilies so
slender they could be the
stalks of Death. The fridge
crammed with bleak ice-thick
foods seems to say: ‘Things
will always be this way’ but
snowed petals know this can
never be. Across the torn
hedgesheets they moan:
‘All comforts are lies. From
us they hide the sliming claws
clinging to our usual walls
scraping to break in. Comforts
lull like the blind blizzard that
makes black wings drink stones’