Museum of Red Noise

The room is milk-light, merciless.
A man in a funeral suit bites a cherry bomb,
lacquer running down to his cuffs like a forged signature.
His hair—an arterial comet—throws exclamations into the air.
Even his smile has hinges.

Next frame, a woman dreams in red circuitry.
Rootlets wire out from her crown and tap the walls for weather.
Her lenses glow like stoplights withholding green.
You can smell solvent, the iron syllable of paint,
hear a soft tick as each bubble dries to a scab.

Then the child—
laughter wide enough for weather,
goggles clouded with midnight soda,
teeth bright as a cordon round a crime scene.
His joy drips steadily onto his collar: proof, or warning.

Halo-girl follows, one eye replaced by a planet.
The other watches us, a lighthouse minus sea.
Another mouths a thorned fruit—
tongue ribboning into hazard tape,
the sweetness barbed, the sugar biting back.

Every face tends an altar of circles—
coin, pupil, lens, clown nose, sun—
a quiet siren. The century frames us
in signal glass, in almost-blood.

The gallery cameras blink and you catch yourself
reflected in their round, obedient eyes.
Your mouth wears a wet border of want.
Outside, day peels like a poster;
traffic lights chew colours, then grin.
Somewhere a star bursts into paint and calls it celebration.

Marked.
You leave with a dot on your lip you can’t quite wipe away,
a small red planet still orbiting your breath.