Siren Call

Chilled blush speaks silently from behind the insulated door. Its insidious whisper less easily blocked than the muffled clamour of its more potent relatives from inside the cupboard. " Just one" tantalises with excruciating stillness. I ignore it for the time being. It is responsible for my recent sloth, my carpets muffled in white, my garden engulfed by lamb's quarters and brassica; the coleus gasps in its foam box, struggling for room. Its clutches slow me, drive me, undo me. I am hidden in my wild garden under the stifling acid dimness of the rhubarb leaves. I can see the cold drops sliding down the chill glass promising cool emptiness. It is a lie, but I want to believe in this untruth. It sustains my fiction for the others passing through my garden at irregular intervals. At times, the fiction pours away dribbling through my grasp unchecked. They do not see. My pieces are lost amongst the whirling fragments of others, to be reclaimed later from distant quarters, and pieced back together ill-fitting and strangely worn. The refitting leaves me aimless and silent. The seams chafe and itch and do not wear together well: a poor coat with which to cover myself. It is what I have: I will make of it what I can.