“I had forgotten,
pumping my iron,
then falling asleep,
unwell and dirty,
the latticework
of reality
zooming into focus
from far to the close.
Shall I describe
how I feel?
Or how it appeared
after the first dose?
-After the first dose.
There I was, foggy,
making my way home,
my time compressed
by familiarity.
-And where was she?
She stood at the end
of a green country road
in distress, or remorse,
or just plain bored.
-Continue.
That’s one version, of course.
The other a scaffold
of cold war metal work
at times sharp, coned
-Coned?
meeting at their points,
hundreds of thousands,
arranged as a wall,
on that same road.
They said I was ill,
the degreasing vats,
their fumes inducing dreams,
those cunning rats.
Like diviners,
they search her schemes
in my entrails.”
The sparse room is
as you imagine.
smoke rings try,
unsuccessfully,
to penetrate the walls.
jam09
