Girl, Interrupted. Dublin, Ireland. 2014. Anon. (photo credit: Karen B. Golightly)
(Note: regarding audio–this poem starts at 2:03 seconds)
A Shapeless Self, Trapped Again
It’s mostly night now.
The chalkboard instructs me
to dream of broccoli soup.
Like in a dream,
the shadows have stolen a woman’s face
at the end of the room.
Like in a dream,
I can’t move my limbs
in a way that’s real to me or to anyone else,
and so must sing and tell the truth.
I order the soup, stare out at the group.
I swoon awhile with the current and the crowd.
The saga of being misunderstood
begins in a thousand places
and culminates right here and now.
Unlike a dream,
there are no sudden circuses
to relieve this knot of drama.
But like a dream,
waking is the hardest work.
____________
Colin Dodds