V - Uneasy Dreams

Light comes in flickers
from a jaundiced tallow candle
Sputtering down towards
extinction.
The only sounds
the grasshopper ticking of
a bronze pocket watch
and my wheezing breaths.

The psychotherapist sits
in a maroon leather armchair
bathed in flame
absorbing the candle's glow.
An oversized cigar
totters in his palsied hand
balanced between shaking fingers
with yellowed nails.
Crumbs of grey ash
fall from the smouldering tip
and settle on the faded rug.
His top lip curls
over weeping gums
his Roman nose blemished
by a thumb-sized indent
his eyes rheumy
locked behind
smudged librarian's spectacles.

I
lie supine
on a cold leather couch
waiting
breathing.

He smacks his dry lips.
My proboscis quivers with anticipation.
He does not look at me.
He seems to be blind.
"You," he says
slowly
deliberately
voice trembling
"can change, Mr Samsa,
but the key is&;#8230;"
He hesitates
as if he has forgotten.
Smoke sighs out of his
giant cigar
melting
into the drapes.
"You can change,"
he repeats
"but the key is
you must want
to change."

I look at him
through compound eyes
and cigar smoke.
Leather-bound books
with gold-leaf print
age on aching shelves behind his head
sheathed in dust.
He coughs
a rasping gasp
and the light from the candle
stutters.
"Tell me about your mother,"
he says.
"What is
the earliest thing
you can remember?"

I see
dull grey ache
barren room
damp stains on the walls like soup
like scars

"Do you,"
he says
then breaks off
with a groan.
"Do you,"
he stops again.
His cigar continues to burn
and beneath the candle flame
pig-fat pops and crackles.