When my head hits the pillow, I embark upon
a long night’s journey to tomorrow. Tides of
un-waking gently tug me from the harbour. All
clamour fades, until the breaking of waves against
the hull of my skull becomes the steady wash of breathing,
while the beating of my heart is like a distant
buoy that tolls in warning of the dangers of
the deep. I sink, as heavy as a submarine,
yet with slow cetacean grace. And this is where
the image fails and language slips its moorings: Flying
fishes chase their tails three times as they settle by
the door to dreams. A stream of unconscious Loch Ness
monsters on the road to Manderley, where
Mrs Winter finds a splinter of dry ice from
the broken looking-glass that pierced poor Alice through
her heart. Bite me. Taste of sugar and Old Spice, as
I stand before the class, pierced by malice on an upset
apple-cart to hell. Tumbrel down the rabbit well.
I’m late for an impotent date: Freddy the thirteenth
disappears, but for his teeth and molten ears.
Old video nasty fears and thrills. Blackboard screech
of fingernails as alarm shrills. Wake up on a beach
without spades or pails. My dad is dead and buried,
but not here. I see him standing in shadow
beneath the pier. In my head, I know, I understand;
but he is near. In dreams, all is unclear, yet this
is the best time of day: When I voyage beyond
the bay and only reality decays.
