In a Restaurant Kitchen

 

The coffee in my blood, it
Must be, that brings limbs that lay
Not half an hour ago so heavy
I could hardly get them out of bed
To fly's-wing agitation.

My nervous system easily outruns
My thoughts, and more importantly
This huge, unruly jellyfish
Of black water that must be coaxed
Whole across the tiles to its appointed exit.

No body but one suspended between
The brain's sluggishness and the skin's
Supersensitivity could so conjure
With the seconds, the split-seconds.
I've hardly time to notice

An amoeboid spill of filth shoot
Underneath an oven, before it
And another three besides have been
Raked back into the main tide
By my long-handled squeegee.

Behind this accelerating, decelerating
Swarm of coordinated movement
Are bars of steaming sunlight on the tiles
And dreams that have persisted
Since first I half awoke.

Tom Nolan    10.05.2009