Michael Bartholomew-Biggs
Broken Rhythm
The first mistakes occurred a few days later.
A wrongly-primed alarm
meant the buzzer, not the radio,
sliced across my oversleep,
coarse-grinding dreams made extra dark
by roasting in my skull too long.
Habit, half-awake, poured two strong coffees.
Neither one was drunk
of course: I went without that slow embrace
of bitterness which mimes deliberation.
When I came back the bedside clock was flashing
a red and stupid time.
Another local power cut had stunned
and left it beating feebly
as a butterfly behind a window
never catching up the sun.
And all the poor thing needed was somebody
else at home to calm
its frantic fluttering. Which would have been
as easy as to say defibrillation.
Page(s) 17
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