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Sport 32: Summer 2004
Backroads
Backroads
In the bin of the wheelchair toilet
a pair of striped underpants soaked through
with blood and when I touch the white square
of the flush button it bears a bloody fingerprint
as a stamp bears the face of the Queen
right at the centre.
Last night I dreamed of war and libraries.
From where the books waited in their plastic
I escaped and found soldiers, dressed in white sheets.
Only the eyes of one moved
the others were saturated in the blood of their entry
and exit wounds. The bullet passes through the body
as a building.
When I woke I found myself one of two
rushing quietly with veins
and by the bed that manilla folder that says
BACKROADS which I never open.
The Baku is the animal that eats nightmares
but ours are travelling like lonely salesmen
looking for a bar to take them in.