In the dim light
I try to catch the poet’s ideas
as he projects them over heads and tables
but they dissolve into the air like smoke
wafting around the room;
consonants snap, vowels spill.
I find I’ve become a screen
on which the overhead words play
but at the wrong distance,
so that huge letterforms cover me at random.
Serifs alight on my face and hands, and ascenders
escape through my scalp.
I’ve become a room
in which a child lies down
after dinner, full-bellied,
the lamplight splashing over
the sofa cushions and his shoulders.
The adults linger in the dining room,
their chatter drifting in.
Their words each have different weights
and shapes and will not be ushered smoothly
by any of the currents washing through
the canyons of his mind.
The gullies run softly over
but he recognises the conversation
and what it means:
what he is becoming
by listening.