NO PANE NO GAIN

Last week when I returned
I found my desk
covered in dust
family photos dispersed
other documents damaged:
(no prof should have an empty desk).
I had been away
and wondered if colleagues
had enacted a cremation
scattering my ashes
with a light but disorganising touch.

 

So four weeks is all it takes, I mused,
to incinerate the idea
of me, my work,
my modelling clay, my canvas.
Then through my jet-lag
I saw a pane was missing
from my window. Robbery
on the second floor?
But when I looked outside
I saw it dead and broken
on the ground.

 

So much for my paranoia,
but at my age when time
runs backwards towards dependency,
when the diminished locust in me
seeks its spent chrysalis
as a refuge,
anything is possible.

 

Well it’s not, actually –
and that’s the problem.