Sunday 19 April 2020

Escapes


The sky in my mind escapes
and overlays itself
onto the breezy sky
of a spring day.

It has become a grey-black, mind sky,
and the neighbours are not amused.
Where did that come from?
their faces say in unison,
as they turn in all directions.

It could be mistaken
as a depression metaphor,
so I think of a tropical sunset,
all oranges and reds, with silhouettes of palm trees
and a flock of awkwardly flying flamingos –

because who can picture an accurately flying,
silhouetted flamingo,
let alone a whole flock of them?

Like so many things, this, too, escapes my mind,
hiding the grey black.
I laugh at the incongruity of my tropical, evening sky
on the edge of a British city in April,
at two o’clock in the afternoon.

The graceless flamingos captivate the neighbours,
and I silently recite a poem about conversations.
The spring sky returns,
and all the neighbours start talking at once.

I retreat to the quiet of my house,
and think of a clear night sky.
When I awake,
the Milky Way is on the ceiling,
on the walls,
on the floor.

I sit in my rocking chair on the outer spiral:
silent, still, invisible;
more impossibly out of proportion
than I have ever been.

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