Saturday, May 1, 2010


Narrows



And then comes the morning when it dawns on you

the sun is not going to rise any more than you will

above yourself; when, in the midst of the mist,

blinkers have crept up the sides of your

cheeks, corridors have closed in like

garbage-tip walls, doors have

disappeared, and the past

repeats ad nauseum,

hissing from the

gutters like

steam.


You’ve awoken to dead-ends stacked up, like bodies en bloc, no

exit signs, no wrong way turn back, where gambler’s

luck is never looking up, and if you’re honest

no one’s sure what you mean, where self-

abandonment is out of vogue, tunnel-

vision is the new black, clouds

have descended so low that

even the supermarkets

are dark and everyone

is looking for some

way out, any way

out, not a mirror,

anything but

mirrors, just

a window

open

to let

the

rain

in.




(published by Otoliths, 2010, while a previous version of

this poem was published in Literature and Aesthetics, 2005)