The further adventures
of Schrödinger’s cat,
having escaped from the
box: a lesson learned at
midnight is forgotten by
morning. Light is air, air
is light. There is a castle
whose name is Wonderful,
whose stairways are many,
and whose rooms are hung
with narrative tapestry;
there is also a daytime
street along which laptops
are hawked, and “Brother,
I know which scene I’d put
my hand in the bucket for!”
The walk from the dock to
the city centre is one mile,
measured at one pace per
second; you pass a place
of flowers. Moon is air.
The faces of the children
in the skate park (your
attention was attracted by
the roaring of bearings)
are joyful but mimic grief,
are momentary but mimic
hours, youthful but mimic
age; gestures (especially
the one tipping up his board
with his toes, resting a hand
on his hip, looking down rapt
at his little rectangle of light
(air) which he caresses with
a thumb) are casual but mimic
the deliberation of statuary;
they belong, as pieces belong,
to the chessboard courtyard
of the castle, where subtle
magnets move them, such is
their familiarity to the caress
of forces they don’t recognise
yet and music they catch on
the breeze (perhaps drifting
out of an open car window).
The cat, out of the box now,
exploits its existence/non-
existence to the full, finding
the window of opportunity
open/closed. Moon is light
(except on days when she’s
a beige penny, bouncing on
the old UHF antennas and
caught briefly in the corner
of your gaze). Possibly the
city is sleeping when it is at
its most active, everyone,
even those most savvy at all
things current, forgets that
each garden once had its own
patch of kale. Life is feuhold.
The children are the many-
armed form of Vishnu. Listen!
The leaves make a sistrum
you can (sometimes) hear
above the traffic the rattle
of dry litter reaching its way
along the foot of the wall
makes a flapping prayer-flag.
__________
©Marie Marshall
