Brook Emery

The half-awake world in the half-light

The half-awake world in the half-light, the gloved sounds that tap
     the ear – bird-call, leaf-slide, door-creak, door-slam – and the
     complicated nature of desire.

(There are no simple things. The simplest anatomise into complex
     parts. The orchid in captivity can’t be pollinated by the
     Madagascan moth but may be split.)

Light claims the moment for itself, obliterates in its reflective rustle,
     conceals encroachment in its folds, the unanticipated touch.

No. Not here. Not now. There’s so much to consider. The sequence of
     sounds, the unknowable and what it means, the time it takes

to cross an interval between two spots or states. Or within itself. The
      mystery of now and then, how an albatross sleeps while flying.

A curse on dithering, weighing up and second-guessing, ordering the
     accounts, the sad debilitating song what if, what if.

What if I skipped, what if I leapt, took off like a bird or a diver from a
      cliff? Would there be an elongated moment, a floating before the
     fall?

Come closer now. Never mind the mess, the evanescent clouds, the scream
     that comes from somewhere else, what’s blue and
     rushing up to meet you.