Prognosis

 

Prognosis

 

The doctor shook his head,

The horizon’s coming after her,

He said.  He said,

It’s going to tip her off this world -

Which, after all, is flat, linear

When unfurled -

And take a part of your world too.

Did you imagine that the Coriolis

Effect was a fictitious force?

Or that Achilles would never catch up

With the tortoise?

That life was travelled along a Möbius strip?

 

The TV’s on all day, playing repeats,

A mockery of time passing.

She sits,

A bundle of sticks thrown at her feet,

Too many to count, too few not to number.

 

How much courage do you have to muster,

Waiting, knowing, looking over your shoulder?

Offstage

 

Offstage

She’s backstage in wardrobe,

Being measured up:

The final touches to costume,

Hair and make-up.

She can hear muffled voices,

Layered on the silence:

The ruffled noises of actors and audience,

The occasional scratching of applause,

The sharpening of the critics’ claws.

 

She shuffles around the stage -

Her slippers scuffing the polished floor -

Rearranging the props,

Shifting the scenery,

Changing the backdrops.

 

She’s working on trying

To remember her lines,

And how to figure in her cues.

But she keeps forgetting,

Drifting off … is carried away …

 

Then, prompted,

She exits stage left,

Wanders down the abandoned corridor,

Past the glitzy Stations of the Cross

That line the walls,

Climbs the narrow, crepuscular

Staircase, gripping the twisting,

Muscular bannister,

Calmed and worn smooth

By familiar hands.

 

At the top, a door ajar;

She finds herself in the gods,

Looks around, takes a seat,

Takes a breath,

And stares down

Into the teeming, atomised dark,

Sits waiting for the next show to start.

Touched

 

Touched (by intention) - an extract

Her boyfriend’s tongue,

Tipped with promises,

Penetrates her mouth,

Loosens, unbuttons,

Unbuckles her being;

She slides off the edge

Of herself.

 

She moves through the cinema

Of the world,

Where strangers faces

Matinee porno movies,

Eyes panning like sleamy hands

Running amuck amongst

The folds and fissures

Of her undressing.

 

Her husband has an access

To her body she denies herself:

The piercing and eating

Of her flesh;

A gift, a right, she believes

She has freely given;

An invitation to ...

A movable feast,

A candle-lit supper,

A take-away dinner,

Finger food.

The napkin of her skin

Glistens.

 

One day,

He’ll push the plate away.

In Camera

 

In Camera

 

There is usually a queue,

So you take a number, and wait,

Pass the time of day -

There’s always something to say -

Talk about the weather; stew;

Count the cost, and hesitate ...

 

The line shuffles forward,

Though one appears no nearer.

Some try to push in front;

A few wonder, What’s the point?

Others linger over every word,

Yet the meaning is no clearer.

 

And when your time arrives,

Everything seems to fall away,

As if the you as a notion

Has always been in question;

And what of you survives

Will barely have a say.

Departure

 

Departure

 

She’s travelling on the back of a borrowed waggon,

Pulled by tired horses, being jolted along

A rutted but unbeaten track, into the hinterland

She had never imagined mapping,

But the landscape has become rugged,

Jagged and unchanging.

 

Her belongings are spilling

out of the boxes, are tumbling

over the tailgate, falling

by the wayside, into

the dirt, into

the ditches.

 

She no longer acknowledges the driver,

Just turns her head away, pulling

A blanket around herself and huddling

Into a corner, away from the dank air,

From the creeping fog of early morning,

Wrapping herself in the shrinking

World of herself, in the warm fug of herself,

Taking a desolate comfort

 

In arrival.