Barbara's Bus! The Lino Cut!

Today (well, OK, Monday but I have to leave the house before sunrise that day for work purposes) TFE's magical Poetry Bus is being driven by Barbara, of Barbara's bleeuugh!, so go here for more bus poets:
http://intendednot2b.blogspot.com/

Now Barbara laid down what is possibly the challenge I've found the hardest thus far.
It was to begin a poem with the lines,
"I got down on my knees and smelled the new linoleum..."

So here we go...



The Kitchen

I got down on my knees and smelled the new linoleum
and it did not suggest hope, but exact mausoleum
as this Sunday magazine home is succubus like me;

whilst I have drained for gain I am become dancing monkey
for the grinder’s organ, my tasselled little fez and waistcoat
hidden under corseted couture, pearl rope at my throat.

I pressed my cheek hurt hard on a salvaged cherry wood door
but no trace integrity seeped into one tightened pore
of my flawless skin: my liquid foundation defaced it.

Fingertips on reclaimed marble worksurface, I rise, sit
to right myself steady: the girls will be arriving soon
and removing their Choos green marvel at my great fortune,

they will coo and flutter-flap at my kitchen’s credentials,
I’ll smother them in patisserie, until essentials
like love, and trust, and truth, and happiness lie forgotten

crumbs on my French china, until one-by-one they omen
my life, and spirit to the bathroom, to vomit away
that which they have consumed. We shall air-kiss goodbye, I’ll lay

down on my linoleum and smell it once more, recall
not-Uncle Edwin’s and not-Auntie Gwyneth’s narrow hall,
how I hated the bare lino that covered every floor

like a poverty flag. So I swore that I would have more,
and look at me now, smelling the lino and just as cold,
and just as cold, just as cold; and just as old, just as old.