8 Dec 2017

The Terrible Long Arm




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.