sieges

poem about 2007

You feel them on the freezing afternoons
the fifteen moths abuzz inside your gut
You call the man and fret until he shows
You set the scene and pull the shutters down

But daylight has a way of squeezing through
the photons twisting like they know your name
Receptors wave them in without a word
and hustle shadow puppets to the stage

What patience from imaginary foes
forever at the window next to yours
They lean in peeking from the edge of view
dissolving into doubt under your gaze

You lock the doors and then go round again
to squint into the flickers and the gleams
you witness contours nauseate to murk
as eyeballs burn and beg from staring dry

You wonder if it’s real, and worth a fight
You stiffen and refuse to make a sound
Then rustles without meaning coalesce
and curdle into whispered idle taunts

Eight hours would go by doing the rounds
and end up with you naked, with a knife
Eventually the downers would kick in
and snaking vines would wrap you to the sheets

These days you tell yourself it’s in the past
the seeking of enslavement and abyss
but then you pick it up and start to scroll
deployed to the kaleidoscope patrol