Sometimes my husband shifts in the night
and I wake, make up memories of the two of us;
memories absurd as wall-eyed butterflies
dancing at midnight or Browning's sonnets
escaping a dead man's lips.

My real love stories are written in fading ink.

An elephant crushes our house
whenever my thoughts go quiet,
this plain brown sandstone house
with overgrown roses out back
and possums sniffing the moonlight.
Will my heart still have room to beat 
when I run out of lies to tell? 

Pris Campbell
©2008



Art: Unnamed artwork by Badri Narayan, a 79 year old artist and storyteller of some renown from India.



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