Lips

She has two lipsticks in her bag
but no pen so he keys her number in as ‘Lips’;

she never expects him to ring anyway. Men
never do, although that night, at midnight,

they speak for three hours and she tells him
things she’s never told anyone before – how

once as a child, she saw her father cry,
and her mother laugh – and he tells her

he’s tired of trying and failing and trying,
and they sleep with phones on the pillows

until the morning when a text awakes her,
Who the hell is Lips? She stares in the mirror,

asking herself the same question before
painting on her mother’s mouth, laughing.