I’m not myself today.
From the bathroom sink
I lift up a face with its glassy eyes
and pallid flesh, shake off the water,
look again.
No, that’s not me. Definitely.
Next, I uncoil the serpent’s tail
of the iron and turn it on.
It lights up like the devil
and soon heat and motion
define the spaces where my body fits.
Since I cannot imagine the weight
of all these parts, I let it pass.
Last week the mains all blew and left us
in the dark for hours.
An ambulance passed by,
scattering shadows and noise
and the pile of builder’s sand
we’d just had delivered,
the type that goggas breed in.
I am never likely to be as embedded
as those tiny footless creatures
that cling to the grains so tenaciously,
but I imagine it is likely that
today I am not myself.
And the gods be praised for that.