Some memories are a pantomime in a dolls house.
A lantern-slide show in a small old-time theater.
Each seat occupied with an audience of one.
The spectacle is painted in sunny colors
as if some skillful child had chosen fairy-tale similes
to illustrate parts of a story.
Apart from usual rooms, the turrets and towers.
Apart from the Disney scenery, it is of course
a barely true, sanitized version of a concealed
and disjointed life.
The audience of one begins to fidget,
an itch creeps up its back,
a head heavy with sarcasm bares its yellowing teeth.
The watcher arises from its chair,
stretching its ancient body, its leathery wings.
Then that audience of one soars out
of an open window clearly marked – ‘you’.
Categories:
lantern slide, poetry,
Form: Free verse