Strangers

Strangers......strangers ...all around...
Walking ..sitting ...talking...I hear ...the spoken words.. familiar..
Office gossip...Mary in a hospital
I listen ...gazing , staring into space...
Calm as a rooted tree..soothed .

I’m far from my own bed..my own pots and pieces
The window of my kitchen.
I am a million miles away from way over there
And I am sitting...here.

The coffee cup is round... the table and the chairs...
The bubble of the human soul ...floating all around me...
I’m in a womb...and..

In my favourite state of nothingness.

My dull brain... like a chameleon ...sits silent and still
Within my skull...a beige blamange
Not in colour yet.

I sip the coffee...best in the world I’m told.

You said my lack of shoes will not suffice for lunch at 1pm.
My flip flops let you down. The Mortify you.
When you arrive here you’ll whisk me off to David Jones.
Re-program me so that you may present me
With some pride and ease.

But now...I sit with strangers, gazing , staring...
Calm as a rooted tree..soothed.

The coffee cup is round.

Kristine Byrne
Set in Brisbane. late 2010