sign me up

The spider

sees walls I don’t

walks up them

stops for a minute

and twirls, uncertain

of which world

it is in – the one

where it’s safe, feet

on solid ground

or else

the one where it hangs

impossibly

suspended

in nothingness.

Tonight, I’m clumsy

trying

to put my arms through walls,

through wood and concrete

until

I get enough bruises

to remind me

where my body ends

which world I’m in

that I only have

two legs

The child with golden locks tells me to marry a man with money.

The child whose favourite colour is grey tells me to look on the    bright side,

the child smelling of fabric softener tells the same story.

The child in the shape of a cloud tells me to take ten deep breaths,

the small child reminds me it’s rude to whisper in a public place,

the child that rolls in circles on the floor tells me to travel east.

The child with shoes on the wrong feet replies to the child

with the alligator and the wolf telling me to give up and cry cry cry,

whilst the child with the strange nose mumbles ‘don’t lie about it tonight’.

It’s a wire

into your head

– a mouth-

piece pressed

up to the mouth

as key after

key is punched

with your heart

on your lips

so some voice

at that other

end will ask

Can I help

you? then wait

to ask again

until some-

thing gives

to make its

one

moment

clear

that when we risk

speech or dare

listen

a line is

thrown down

that line we

call phone –

a tension strung

across un-

speaking

chasms whose

both ends

hold (hold

with hands of

strangers)

the receiver