Follow him down the hall. Bill discards clothes as he goes. Shoes off. Socks gone. Wriggle long bony toes. Hairy line on a concave stomach. All around the floor are cut-ups. Words circle their feet. Snipped out from newspapers.

– No rolls.

– Fucks sake, what do ye want fir breakfast then, Bill?

– To get high and fuck. Love, lust, want – what a way to glide through the cosmos!

– That’s it?

– After that – just words. It’s all I want. Words. I want to infiltrate and disorder meaning. Rearrange the fabric of existence in twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Twenty-seven if you include the ampersand.

Newspapers are stacked up.

Pages gape where whole sections are missing.

There is a round white plastic television in the corner. Two aerials stick out the top giving it a humanoid appearance. A brand-new tape cassette player sits on a low wood-effect sideboard. It has seven tapes. Bill brought them from America. This young man commandeers his space, time, location with ease. Two egg-shaped armchairs face a sash window. It is a tall window three panes wide. The living room has been cut in half with a cheap partition wall. There is a narrow bedroom and long living room out of what must previously have been a good-sized lounge. Bill places a glass on the floor and lowers his ear to it.

– There is a sound coming from under the floorboards.

Downstairs there is a low repetition of words and hymns and curses and ancient secrets that could be recited by a human.

– Voodoo?

– It’s a parrot. It belong tae ma neighbours Archie and Agnes, down the stairs, they’ve lived here for years.

Bill is laid out, spreadeagled and naked – on top of the words all over the floor.

He appears to be wearing Marigolds.

The poet cannot remember putting them on. Marigolds are a new thing. He supposes, at some point, he must have been offering to do the washing-up. Time is strange in this city and even more so with his lover.

– Why does a parrot go on like that?

– It had a psychotic break, after what happened tae Archie’s wife.

Bill nods.

His young man is handsome in an unkempt way, and he’s dark-haired with a voice to die for. John is getting him to stroke his skin with Marigolds on. Kink. Plastic, oil. He must have placed these on his hands whilst he was nodding and Bill is not going to judge him: he’s going to fuck him.

Later, when the buzz eases.

John is very naked.

He is the most naked young man Bill has ever seen.

His eyes have flecks of real gold inside them and John is bending over him on the floor. Bill wonders if he took too much – his racing heart!

John is going to speak.

Waiting for something to come out of his mouth is terrifying.

– Are you okay?