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STEPHEN LAWRENCE
- Something Needs My Attention
- A delirium of repetition, infraverbal,
- climbs to threshold, tumbles me out of
bed.
- What could make my body tug itself
- reluctantly from under this bed’s
quilt,
- plan a slanting path to the laundry
–
- the hard-tiled night laundry, of all
places?
- An outlandish combination of chemicals
- in one warm pool, urges its filtrate
- to rescue this thought from oblivion;
- its tiny influence squirts a wisp of
extra serum
- sets off a memory-relay, a race to a
poem.
- I slap to this shadowed room,
finger-greet
- a clothes-hook, an ironing board;
- I negotiate a cupboard door’s
substance,
- spine it back into position. A pencil
- breathes invisible words across its mat,
this poem
- fixes to the page, an elbow nudges aside
folded washing.
- Its tilting pile’s moon-grey outline
–
- fresh-kill warmth leached into space
–
- resolved to ashen thermalwear, socks,
briefs,
- waiting to find their wardrobe resting
places;
- before I rejoin my sleeping self…
What else?
- A reminder from the spinal brain: Go
piss.
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