Heavy afternoon heat invades the room.
Near the window frowning at evasive clues
and mentally re-ordering squares to the perfect solution
he slaps the paper rigid.

She watches him closely,
silence expanding for her like unnecessary insulation.
Occasional glances feel like bottles cast into the ocean without messages.
The mantle clock chuckles mocking chimes.

A jazzy rug bought once in a moment of joyous spontaneity
stretches between them like an empty highway
or a bridge that finds no banks.
Polished floorboards groan under the weight.

The room is awash with blue,
indigo and ultramarine patterns and plates
endlessly lapping the walls like so much flotsam.
Scattered photographs anchor lives momentarily caught in a net of purpose;

The leather chair sighs;
she crosses to the bookcase with its darkness of closed books
inside each a life evidenced by finger prints.
She wishes to be lost, an ant in a city of peonies perhaps.

He clicks the biro in triumph.
Anger rises; a boiling kettle spewing steam clouds masking the world.
Leaving the room the long tongue of the lock licks the door frame,
the mischievous kiss barely audible.