(noun) a useless, unfinished structure, begun without establishing the cost

a golden shovel from ‘Hysteria’, T. S. Eliot 
 
You follow my lead and lift your oar from the river. We glide, our backs to Temple Island. I 
draw the scull to the landing stage. We rest our blades and clamber out. You’ve decided 
how this will end; you pull a bottle of champagne from under the splash guard. I know that 
your eyes are scanning down my back as they track me up the bank. I let my hips swing. If 
I block my thoughts of her, will I feel less like your whore? I glance over my shoulder. The 
image I have of her, draped in blue blanket that’s shielding your suckling child, is shaking 
my conscience. But I climb up to the cupola, shift into the sunlight, lean against the statue of 
Bacchante. You press against me, sweat-soaked cheats held up by this priestess of folly. Her 
right hand loosing folds of cloth that fail to cover. Too-hot March sunset glows over breasts. 
Upstream, St Mary’s bells peal out immaculate time that rolls to this empty temple. I could 
push you away, but mouths and hands explore as our bodies hinge and flex. I want to be 
the pipistrelle swooping over the Thames, devouring insect lives. But I’m the moth, stopped 
up and swallowed, no chance of escape. The breeze rubs up against me as you unravel some 
bindweed from a branch and wrap it around me. Some call it the devil’s guts. The fingers of 
your left hand twist through my hair, tipping my head back. You drip chilled wine from the 
bottle into my mouth. It bubbles as it trickles and slips down my throat. Alcohol fragments 
through my body, fusing with dopamine. I like to play with wild things, I muse, a cocktail of 
chemicals buzzing through my body. A rat scrambles up the staircase, pauses to drink in the 
shallow pool of fizz that’s formed at our feet, then slinks off. The belladonna black afternoon 
fades into shades of night, the thrushes fall silent. After, I feel you shudder, think you might 
be laughing. I turn on the torch on my phone, see that you are crying. But it’s too late to be 
feigning guilt with what’ve we done; your smell is on me. I stay silent, unshaken, collected.