In a house four streets from my own,  
I’m on a plastic pink seat 
playing a child’s piano. On a nearby sofa  
two women talk 
and I hope a sliver of one ear is listening  
to the melody developing over two octaves.  
The moon is swollen  
 
in a square of sky –  
prompting thoughts of a game  
played years ago:  
Who can hold their breath the longest?  
which I won; but afterward  
the world blackened around a circle of light  
and I flopped to the grass until 
 
summer returned.  
Darkness then was mutable; tonight, like treacle –  
and we have reached the sticky centre 
where the woman I am almost in love with  
slings red wine into a glass  
and requests  
 
her favourite song. Victory  
will be finding the chords,  
finishing the wine, on the walk home  
showing her where I held my breath, 
her saying that she is almost  
in love with me too.