What a strange world Mother says,
stepping back into the room. We’re still
talking about our sons – tall, handsome,
saying just leave me be now Mother.
That drink looks like a hedgehog
the cowboy says. Turning to me:
is this your crow? You’re as much use
as one trouser I reply, as half a pair of gloves.
With that he puts The Inferno into his pocket
and gallops off across the map of Colorado,
I’m only here as an observer he announces.
I’m only part of the wiring in the wind.
This phone’s bugged I say into the phone,
and this dream’s rigged, to the people
living in the fibreoptic I’ve never met
who overhear us. Who knows who they talk to?
These days we talk funny, on the TV
discussing racket abuse in Latin America.
Suddenly I remember you in the bikini area,
and forget you again, wiping your tape into silence.
After the hurricane: how are things
in your wreck of the woods? Does the censor
know about you or were you educated locally?
Answers on a postcard. Wake me if I’m dreaming.