Use of the Room

We were rained out of Algonquin
Park, out of our makeshift tent. L
ucky we found a motelier
willing to let us
ten-to-a-room; the grandparents
got the bed, the grandkids squeez
ed between them, feet to head.
The wall-clock, like a Cyclops

, stopped to watch: our dreams
tip into twisty images; frozen star
es—yours and mine—like stags’
on mouldy shag; you and I
got the rug, the baby
stowed in the ark of a pulled-out
drawer. At random, like a biblio-

mant, I opened Gideon’s
Bible to Isaiah 12:3—
With joy you will draw
water from the wells
of salvation.

Our camp-stuff
hung like outsized tinsel,
wet on a room-shaped tree.

What I’m getting at is people
build up meaning between them
selves and all
the seemingly
random things
…………………..that present.
What matters is contending with
these afresh.

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