Disturbing the bee in the centre
of a quivering flower, its irritated buzz
is a reminder that you’re some clumsy

intruder to an insect microcosm; another
of those worlds in which you allow
yourself to exist, everyone behaving as if

you do: like a hammy actor in an amateur
play, you’re expected in certain roles, even
fellow passenger on the bus. Deploying

people as a dulled mirror in which your
existence reflects back so wispy
and incomplete, you can’t be sure it’s not

someone passing fleetingly in the background.
There’s a phantom hand admiring
the elegant glass jug, there’s the ghost

of a cousin visiting; a slip of the hand
and he fades at the lip of the jug. You wanted
to believe the one who wrote your heart

will tell you what is right, but it remains
mute, or incoherent. Looking back
over a shoulder you tried to see your

self as another might: breath and blood filling
an outline, feet anchored to the unyielding
ground, but caught only a shadowy figure

walking some distance away. Dawdling
while birds fly through a notepad of coloured
pages: parakeet green, skylark violet, and then
you’re immersed deep inside the fact of colour.