PAPA IN O.T.

There is a there
where you are;
here is a here when
let me go then
I and I...
Unlashed slits unlatched
grow hands, finger-tips
to sense your presence
propinquitious.
Little bowris* on sides both
grow legs stepping down to the doormat
some footsteps shuffle and ripple
watery silence of the corridors.
The back of my palms
perforated with needled eyes
with doctor’s tape apertured
pain looks through and beyond.
A bottle of glucose
oozes in liquid hope
to metamorphose a here’s when
to a there’s then.
Then, green aprons flutter,
come to collect a withered leaf
to graft in the purgatory
(they call it OT).
Where are you, my acorn?
A condensed drop of flight is
flushed into at the bottom of my spine —
the mint-mermaid singing

on the shores of the unknown and dancing
all wheres and whens away...

* A word from local dialect, meaning ‘little ponds’.