On Earth, a boy is in a bathroom thick with hairspray and steam, doing what he can to forget. He’s shimmied his body up, he’s leaning close enough to kiss his reflection, a reflection with fresh red lips. In the sink the broken length of lipgloss melts beneath a dripping tap.

Underground, a girl (though she was abducted) makes a choice to appease the Earth by returning, to cause a spring (though it was her uncle who abducted her).

Her uncle, Hades, makes her Queen (she made a choice), he makes her name taboo, so she must be some nameless woman underground battered by Zeus.

And the boy he tries chemicals, he tries shouting, he tries lager, lager, lager, lager…
Lager-lager-lager blooms iridescent yellow and foam.

The boy, he tries babes, and babes and God on the telephone line

and she says, Boy, I am Queen of nothing at all, dust and dirt, why do you call me?

The boy, he asks her if she knows Tottenham Court Road tube?

She says, Boy, is this place Underground?
And they laugh
and they laugh, Which way to Romford, Boy?

He says, Mum, that you?

Ah Boy, those lines are confused here. I am my Uncle’s wife, how will you have me answer you?

You can tell by your velvet mouth, Mum, that and your shepherd’s pie.

She says, Boy, what kind of shepherd kills his flock to feed himself?

Are you not called Cora, Mum, the Heart?

Yes, that which my uncle-husband plucks from my breast to bite into as if an apple, as if lifeblood

(She made a choice) And she calls Angel Boy—

And the boy tries the club, doing what he can to forget. Skin hot and lager-damp. His hips grind in the groin behind

Angel Boy come over come over—

lipstick Boy, you beautiful Boy, she says, leaning over so her face is all he can see — unlined, pallid, worm-hungry. Perhaps he feels her kiss, but the floor opens up—

And the boy is lying on the carpet watching the room spin, watching the smoke curl, watching her strobe light eyes, blinding when she blinks.

The boy, he says, Mum, that you?
she says, Ah Boy, those lines, boy
and the boy he weeps tears of lager-lager-lager-lager
each one ice on his skin.

She disappears but the boy, he tastes her anaerobic breath. He feels her like leaf-rot blotting his tears, around his shoulders, her stagnant swamp poultice hot on his skin

and she is writhing formless through the worlds, stars, tears shimmering, inner space, strobe lights, angels

and the boy he is lying in spilt lager and dank piss.

She’s dragging him through the underworld: You’re my drug boy, you’re real boy, going back to Romford— (she made a choice)

The boy groans as layers of underworld break open like waves (mega mega white thing)

The boy groans, his heart—his heart—the heart he never had, only pores and skin and drums and drums and drums and drums

And she stops to kiss the boy and the boy groans, grown roots and trunk and heartless living wood, tender leaves and tendrils and soft golden blossom and

she comes so close she is inside him, she is him, he is her, (Angel Lipstick White Thing)

and the boy groans, grown roots, tangled insensible roots, roots deep
underground—

And she smiles, says, Angel boy, come over—