"It's getting late."

What a splendid party it was.
It was that hour,
one of those swelling moments.
The sky had found something amusing,
the garden was laughing.
A puff of wind,
pretending to be fingers,
stripping off
the funny side of everything.
The fig tree fluttered,
bubbling out a kaleidoscope
of tiny drunk flies,
swarming and swooning.
You could feel
history in your hands.
	"This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home..."
One big whopper was smiling,
a smile of sheer sugar,
swinging loose
amongst the streamers and balloons.
Swinging all over
like a careless pendulum,
a grinning hedgehog,
purpling
with a blushed and hungry look.
            

The prickles, prickles,
began to tickle
jolly good girls
on buttered backgrounds.
Trays of savouries,
the right size and shape.
Pink shoes, embracing bare feet,
their pale undersides
barely touching,
bobbing gently, gently.
	"Oh, the gravy,
	 gubble, gubble,
	 gubble, gub."
Another wet sniff
buried in some velvet pelvic pillow.
The bedspread,
the milk shakes,
the icing trickled into the cake
and stirred his coffee
until the cup screamed
	"Give us a little kiss."
Her face pulled down her skirt.
Gilt-framed finger-nails pinched him.
	"Sit before you fall, Blubber!"
Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.
The hedgehog folded into a frog,
flopped onto a three-legged chair
and arranged chunks of diamond-dust.

	"It's tomorrow now."
				he felt.