Over Breakfast 1962. Poem by Terry Collett

Even at breakfast
Sheila thinks of John,
even while mouthing
the baked beans with

cut up bacon, he is in
her thoughts, imagining
him across from her,
sitting where her mother

sits eyeing her(she not he)
what’s up? Mother says,
her eyes digging into her
daughter’s eyes, mood got

you? Sheila disturbed of
John in mind, opens her
eyes wide like one near
blind, nothing, just thinking,

she replies, trying to avoid
her mother’s eyes. Her elder
sister beside her says, she
was twisting and turning

all night and calling out.
Calling out what? Mother
says, eyeing the elder daughter,
the one wanting be a nun,

a bit religious, the odd one,
Father had said. The sister
gazes at Sheila, couldn’t
make out, wasn’t a prayer,

I know. Just a dream, that’s
all, Sheila says, recalling
John in the dream, kissing
her in bed, inside her head.

Disturbing dream sounds
like, Mother says, grim faced,
eyeing Sheila once again,
need to say about it, say

what it was about. Won’t
you leave the girl in peace,
the father says, prior to him
sipping tea, we all dream,

some of us worse than others,
I dream of thee and that’s bad
for me, he says poetically, shy
smiling. His wife is unmoved,

just stares at him. When one’s
child is having bad dreams one
needs to know, she says, cold
stoneyfaced. Sheila smiles. Her

father’s poetic wit has broke
the spell within her head, image
of John has sped, in case Mother
sees with her ex-ray sight(catlike

seeing almost in the night) . See
the girl’s smiling, Father says,
just a dream about school I expect,
some lesson too hard or bored

to tears or other fears. Mother is
unimpressed, but says nothing
more, leaving Sheila to John and
the dreamt kiss as she had before.