STEPHEN LAWRENCE
Poetry—'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.