On a day like today
I fold, and put myself away,
like the crumpled, tossed garments in the hamper
worn and tired looking. I’m a misshapen sac, without a soul
in it.
A sagging deflated balloon.
I want isolation. The confinement of a dark, musty drawer.
To be shut away from the world, while a storm went brooding outside.
The insane spikey crowns of palm trees jostled, and buffeted
by a mad wind.
I needed the familiar, the mundane.
Ironing school uniform creases, scrapping burnt rice from
the blackened bottom of the pot,
polishing shoes, piling papers, books, time, and people into
some kind of vague order.
Can tidying the external, compensate an internal chaos?
The fuming gale continued to hurl dust, and scatter trash onto
roads, sidewalks, and faces.
While passersby endured, bracing themselves, with bent heads,
and squinted eyes.
The strange and terrible long arm of the past reached out,
and lay its heavy hand on my shoulder.
