As Waistcoat and the Pedlar sleep
for three days and three nights.
‘Strapping Young Man’
repairs the hovel’s pane,

with ‘Windows To The Soul’,
the wife works him between her thighs.
She redecorates the hovel,
reorganises the planets and stars,

gives birth on the third day
to a trope called ‘Secret Child’,
whom she places inside an empty
pocket in snoozing Pedlar’s coat.

With snuffles and grunts the sleepers
awake to another trope: ‘a new old
world’. “You’ve been busy,” says
bleary eyed Waistcoat. As pollen

floats above the rafters, roses
bloom in the vases, light explodes
through the mended pane,
and the fragrance of wax polish.