Sydney Pleasure Gardens

Actors can’t mimic the sweat of a fight in this room, they can only hold a face up to the candlelight

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And before walking on one of them holds up a bunch of grapes to the flame, wraps their costume around their shoulders and they should remember to

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Not spill the wine on the floor, it might stain and leave a dark red mark there, softening the wooden panels with its fragrant alcohol

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On the journey there they must have passed the pharmacy window filled with empty dusty bottles and might have been satisfied at the humour, the humour in the echoes of boys singing ‘who will buy, who will buy’

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And watched a greyhound with a kind face cross the crescent.