My Best Face

Dylan Thomas Bedroom, 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, Swansea, Wales


My tweed jacket, silk scarves, and fedora hang on
the back of the door — skeletons waiting for a body.

My writing desk is an operating table
where I slit bad poems with a letter opener.

I take Woodbine cigarettes from a box,
making smoke rings like window frost.

On my bed is the Daily Sketch Newspaper,
suitable for wrapping fish in.

My mattress keeps me awake
with bedsprings creaking like crickets.

A picture of early Garbo
tilted her head in a pose, listening for tea kettles.

She is across from George Bernard Shaw,
thinking, Pygmalion.

But she’s mine, George,
all mine.