Armrest

Origami.
This morning I heard birds on the roof
it sounded like they were unfolding
and folding scrunched paper.
Origami,
was my first thought.

I welcomed the armrests
being held between them
to have both elbows rest like cutlery
arms slanted like skis across a plate.
The plate was my book.

When you leave your knife and fork at angles
after you’ve finished the peas
that means you’re greedy.
That you want more is not a failing.

But you are not like the spoon
which reclines above your plate
like a cherub overseeing a battle scene
and sometimes returns to the drawer
as if it had just been made.

There are people on the train
that still look creased with sleep
they step in with a party of dreams
trailing behind them like balloons.

The night before this morning
with the origami pigeons, and the armrests
and the balloon dreams, last night in fact,
I fell asleep reading my book,
the book that was like a plate.

I have lost my plate.
I can’t remember what I read
and what I dreamt of the book.
If I do the same again tonight
I won’t know who to believe.