The room I don’t leave
takes on new shadows and corners.
The spider, normally dispatched
flat on the back of a slipper,
continues on with impunity.
I watch it by day and by night
playing out its instinctive survival rituals.
I am jealous of its uncomplicated, perspicuous needs.
Melon seeds and crusty rind
lay drying on the china plate that used to be mother’s,
as a fly skittles over the perfectly painted
blue and pink peonies
I’d never noticed before.
Sometimes, orphaned shards of sunlight
attempt to breach my darkness,
unaware of their irrelevance,
oblivious of their noxious presence.
I want to sink, submerged, interred,
eaten up, pressed down in the pain you inflicted so nonchalantly.
So here I lie, aware of life only by the in-out breaths
of my body whispering somewhere deep, ‘it goes on’.
The sun will endure
and the spider with devour
a melon-seasoned supper tonight.