It's freezing in here.
I squeeze my fingers
but
I can't help noticing
the raised hairs on my arms.
I'm wearing nothing
but
a silky beige dress
and a single ring.
I curl in closer,
tucking my left foot under my right thigh and peering over
to make sure my shoes haven't danced off without me,
bored with waiting.
The luxurious leather chair
feels like hewn rock
against my bare ankles.
I twist,
scraping.
I turn the notebook another
ten degrees to the right
and then re-set it.
For half an hour
I have shifted my calves
and moved them back,
turned my body around
and pulled the sack of a dress
uncomfortably down
as if covering my knees will spring the door
and send me back to the sightless jungle
I used to love.
I wonder if I will even know it now,
if I can still touch damp leaves and remember
a safe path through eyeless trees.
The page stares,
looks me over,
makes its iris indistinguishable
and its mind invisible.
I grope, sigh,
run my fingers over its mystery,
marvel at its austere power,
prod the dignified silence
until it relents,
whispers
in ghostly braille
the words I dread most,
the syllables that stalk my dreams
on the occasions when I am offered
the solace of sleep:
All you are
is what you can bring
and do
to a blank page.
And I close my eyes,
tentatively touch
a slippery
thick leaf,
and my right foot falls down
in search
again,
terrified
again
of the blind night.


Looking back the next morning I hate this piece. Ugh.