Limbo Time Should I be graced in that brief space of attention Between my sleep and the mayhem of the day With a short sweet stay in Limbo's haven, So close is it to the realm of Heaven, My mind peels open wide amazed! This wallpaper, this bed, this unRestructured human head; Amnesiac, but lack of panic. No flash-back, no hand to hold, I know I don't know where I live, With whom, or if it is well-told? A holiday! For some, like Proust, a horror-hell – He needs his boost of recollection Just so's he can feel alive. For me, As yet unborn, this is a luscious taste Of death before breakfast – a thin time To stretch and rest and linger in; A womb so rare before the probing Fingers slip inside and enter Bearing my identity and, Most efficiently, Pop on my name and pull me in so That I can be born again: Tagged, labelled and correct And then the day's Babel begins: Old afflictions, adopted sins, Entanglement in elastic strings Of love, duty, calendars And just a wisp of hope that still Another dawn I may be captured By that silky bandit who With sly stiletto cuts a slice of Time from out of Limbo time – Sliding in to rout my thoughts And kidnap memory – A test, a trial, a chance for me To wonder, madly, truly, at How innocent I am.
Clive Donovan
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