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SELF-PORTRAIT AS THE OPENING OF A WINDOW ON A HOT MORNING   Three men carry a large snake home This morning, the pantry was empty again, the sun in the sky like a lemon slice They daydream of fried potatoes, mayonnaise like sun-cream The youngest of the men, a boy, asks the oldest of the men, his father, to describe the following items: walnut, peach, salt, goat’s cheese, apple The father says, ‘Tremendous loss! Tremendous chaos! Tremendous emptiness! Tremendous cracker! Tremendous yellow!’ and thinks of a woman who always slept on the sofa as he cleaned her windows Her legs like caramel from a tin, another life The other man, also a boy, the eldest boy, and also the son of the father, looks at people in the park, all in pairs or groups There is a wedding party He sees the bride’s head over the rows of anemones, violas and benches, her hair like a stick of liquorice He thinks of how he has a particular tree to sit under, how he has spent whole days under there If he sits alone all day and talks to no one, does he exist? Sometimes he scavenges change to buy a bottle of water, just to have spoken Later, as his parents cut the snake into rations, as he spins the snake’s skull around his finger, his mother asks if he wants something to drink, and he believes he has responded When he sees the steam rising from their mugs of broth, he accuses her of forgetting him, goes outside, walks to the river and unsticks a limpet     M’S LETTERS TO TUMBLR   1 I called my parents and said ‘I think I have a problem’ I eat until I get to the bottom of the cereal box which is my favourite part I mix the dust of cornflakes with milk to make a paste my