Keble College

Dare I admit that I am still lonely
and vagrant fingers tap the inside of my skull?
I tango from foot to foot
restlessly flex brash tendons;
between tightened membranes
there is no space to pray.

Earlier, pen poised on the edge of the night
doubts cast over a deist's sallow journals
I read divinity a little too hard
as doubts kicked the cavities of my eyes

I wandered out and came here
for my mantra that ‘I will find a quiet half hour…’
by my semi-communicant self:
built from light and synapses
and always adrift.

Though I admit this, I am never alone with
memories of the day some thing or some one
knocked at the handle-less door
gate-crashed the lecture hall
with talk of meaning.

In one breathless moment
something indefinable flew
vast, listless,
surged through the atrium
like two thousand tiny birds.