“Prologue” in “High Stakes, High Hopes”
I run, rhythmically, one foot forward,
step after step, breath in, breath out.
The tar underfoot is stippled, torn,
a shattered glass shard, trampled,
A bottle top, squashed.
Dear Aunty Sophie . . .
Is this letter a dream or a nightmare?
A compass caught in a web; through it might I find my way?
The rhythm of an archive, a ringing bell, a call to prayer.
The words swirl and land,
pocket sized, powerful, potent, bespoke.
I think of my mother at my father’s funeral.
She asks us to listen,
to not worry about exact meaning, precise words.
She is reading it for him, for her, for them.
A single solitary artichoke heart in flower
sits atop his coffin.
The curtain flutters, it moves in the slight breeze.
It shimmers, orange, then green,
carefully manufactured patterns woven in its threads.
The words wash over us.
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