It's Still Life

They Slip, and Are Slipping Still

I wake. Go for my pen.
Capture your dreams,
I was once told.

This day is a
wrought iron oak,
black enamelled, slick as shine.
In a town
on the coast,
hills fall to the beach into
pebbles rushing on waves.
In a museum,
with tin prints of
nude Victorian women.
Four people wearing
black coats complain,
“these photos are filth.”
Steps and steps,
too many steps
for my pewter grey knees.
Where are the hours. Spent. Years
they slip,
and are slipping still.
Find me. I’m lost in the sharp
scent of wood.
Slipping, like fluid, like knots
in a string, lost
for ten minutes
in a dream.

I finally managed to catch the essence of a dream from last night. I left out the bits where I’m trying to find a parking space, and not having coins for the parking meter, and asking a homeless man sitting in a puddle for change so I could park for an hour. And I left out the bits where I went to the museum because I didn’t want to watch the Star Wars movie with my husband, and I lost track of time, so he ate dinner without me in a restaurant with six floors of seating (and no lift), so I was climbing up and down flights of stairs with my swollen knee looking for him, and by the time I found him he’d eaten all of my dessert. Oh, yes, and it was our anniversary, so I missed all of that celebration because I was too busy looking at pictures of nude Victorian women. Now I’m tempted to say that this is all too weird for words, but that’s obviously not so.

written for Miz Quickly’s “It Seemed so Real” and Twiglet #11 “With a String“