Containing The Preservative

Ointment on the bathroom sink. It burns, you know, when you put it on open sores. You should replace the cap because it sticks sometimes like glue.

Testament at the chemist’s, the long queue through the back. I have, here in my hand, my ticket to salvation. All I have to do is sing out, sing out!

The coiled like seagull was away above the rooftops. I said my chips may be enough to tempt him, not fish. The smell of the ointment kept him away.

The last time I rubbed my hands with copper, the soles of my feet with a pumice stone. I touched wood. I pressed dry ice – and it burnt – on my skin.

The eye was black in the middle, blue outside, white and then red. Puffy, she said. The lid loose, I pulled down my eye lid, and applied some ointment.

They tell me that the mirror is a looking-glass for me to step through. I wipe away the mist with a bunch of toilet roll. It mists again so I can’t see.

The pub on the corner with its olde worlde charm where I went there once. I was a singer in the back room with that Fred. Him and his aniseed sweets.

I put a coin in the top and watched while it circled into the hole in the middle. Raise the Children or something. Find the Kids anyway, at least.

My turn came at the counter and the girl there, I said to her speak up so she could fetch them. My ointments. I dropped them, all over the floor.

There was no need for that kind of language, like I said. It’s no wonder he’s not out at work, at a job. I said you should get yourself some kind of a job.

They press it sometimes so it goes all red, round the outside. Then they peel it off so I can breathe. You should see how much I like it then in my bath.

There was a church there, years ago, across from the clinic. They built bonfires on the grass and the council kept taking them down. They set fire to all the wood.

I could have gone a lot longer if they’d let me. I would have been all right doing that, but they said no. And I haven’t got it wet or even a bit damp.