Différance*

What a wheeze!
To be pulled, head-first,
Inside out, twisted
And knotted like a human balloon.

My guts spill out onto the road
For dogs to lap and crows to pick.

But I rise
Beyond the appalled onlookers,
The taxi drivers and bin men.

I rise
Above the media hubbub of firemen
Strikes, wars with Iraq and failed
Marriages.

I can see the dark crucifixes
Of sparrows, crows and hawks
Beneath me.

The road is like a river,
Cars are like toads, people hoverflies.
Everything is always something
Else.

At this height even the air
Seems arbitrary.

So what if I left you.
So what if you screamed the house down.
So what if the neighbours heard.
So what if I no longer love you.
Or you me.

What difference does it make
If this road is a river
Or a road,
Or the green-blue veins standing out
On the back of my hands,
On the back of my raw and swollen
Bloody hands?



*First published in The Pedestal Magazine - www.thepedestalmagazine.com

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