Abandoned in no man’s land
between the living room and the kitchenette,
I read ‘Portrait of a Lady’ aloud
to the mealy-mouthed hum
of the microwave heating fish
and vegetables for my solitary dinner,
only to realise that it no longer mattered much
who I was before breakfast if no one was there
to tell me how to get through the supper.
Life is a no-win situation,
at least when, wrapped in a blanket, wearing two cardigans, I fight
the cold and my own words.
At first, I didn’t mean the inevitability of death
(mortality is actually a silver lining so few can appreciate),
but our innate, boredom-inducing insatiability—the mother of all vices,
or at least many of them.
But then the Irishman said, ‘Something will be mine wherever I am,’
and it struck me that after all these years and places,
one thing has never left me—my guilt.
hidden pilcrow 