Pam Brown

Missing up

there is a truce and it's a relief     but you're already

dispassionate  and you don't care about propriety

air stings your ears with long lines of thin sibilance

a blowfly catches the current in through the doorway

and out again where you've been missing up all day

no one knew where you were nor what might happen

when the flame caught the agenda and melted all intention     

someone yelling get away get away  you shouldn't be there

can't you read the signs     in a crazed ecstasy of contempt

crying like a fire in the sun  you pass out on top of the contracts

unfinished piles of blueprints and declarations that in writing

now denote your status as a stranger that's the opinion

of the specialist on your body of work as they used to say

before you argued against the phrase and against everything else

that drove you to disappear and hole up beyond location

                                                               © Pam Brown

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