I wish I could write the poem I woke up with,
the one that heard the pneumatic drilling
and didn't care they were digging up
the road again - but that time has past,
the time between laying these words
down on a page, to the now of drawing
the sliding doors closed on the balcony,
lessoning the impact of metal on tarmac
on a now much irritated brain.
The children played louder in the kinder garden,
imagined in colour as background to my waking voice:
Jake, with a blue bucket on his head,
Annabelle twirling in her pink chequered dress,
while the poem on vanity, love, and grace, slipped
over into an abyss of daylight - all in the blink of an eye.
To remember its flavour - is little comfort
as the drilling comes through the glass.
Instead my teeth complain of the dentist,
my furrowed brow upset that the poem is lost,
my mouth annoyed that I have run out of water
to break the fast with a coffee - and the cost -
is in writing this poor second hand copy
before I dress and head for the bakery,
my feet taking me further away from the poem
that said what I wanted to say about love
and compassion; finding a little more peace
the other side of her face, and a little more
killer, the other side of his.
