US Inauguration Day, 2025 


Once I had the antidote to this 

intrusive braying, a way to miss 

the grotesque glitz, the opposite 

of ‘US’, this trust in power, money, hate. 

I’m thinking of a curtain pulled around 

a bay, the basin on the table, my patient 

offering his chin and neck to the blade, 

our innocuous chat as I scrape bristle away,

soapy water carried to the sluice, the catheter 

drained, the fresh pyjamas, sheets and pillow case, 

his face, ready for family, for the mirror. 

Earthly work, recorded as a wash and shave, 

hard to measure or cost, something 

to be lost and found in.

Roy Marshall