She’s as frustrating as a flirt.
I think she may well be one.
She’ll knock on my door at midnight,
and I know if I don’t let her in
she’ll slip through the cracks in the door-frame.

Tonight she offers a nest
of violet eggs, a stained bow-tie
and a bouquet of barbed wire. Declaring
that I shall make dinner tonight.
I’ve never once said no.

She sits and watches as I fry the eggs
with their shiny purple eyes,
as I make stained bow-tie sandwiches
and barbed-wire soup. All the while
criticising everything I do.

I set it all out in cracked china plates
and pluck dandelions to make dandelion tea.
She eats it all greedily, fingers stained with
purple yolk and pricked with
bulbs of barbed-wire blood.
I see the red of a satin bow-tie
disappear between her lips. She never says thank-you,
but adopts a satisfied smile. Kisses my cheek,
and whispers in my ear.
Words that stick in the whorls like sugar.

Then she laughs, touches my lips,
picks up her coat,
and leaves. Banging the door shut, the familiar sound
that folds my world into a tiny square, like paper.
And creases me into a kitchen overflowing
with cracked violet egg shells,
barbed wire and dandelion petals.
And trails of sugar, left like promises.