Shirley worked deviously, of course. Having, under a name not her own, achieved fame by Tarbellizing the plutocrat in a book, and having (still in disguise) been given by the simple minded great man command of his most private papers […]

a sublethal dose

Without polish on our fingernails are the same colour as the background of the Paula Green issue of Poetry NZ, not the greyed down claret of her eyes and mouth but the fingernaily grey-pink of her ears.

It was a weary time. A carriage clock had been placed on the discoloured wooden mantelpiece, and slowly its hands crept on from one to two and from two to three.