They Speak Around The Edges Of Your Dreams Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

they speak around the edges of your dreams
as if you weren't there.
but it's your dream, after all,

isn't it?
who let them in the dream door
or did they neglect to knock and just barge through

with their snide glances, eyebrows crooked-
unruly, in new galoshes:

so good at overlooking you
in your own household,
sporting your own shoes!

and passing notes to each other
skipping you in the rows,
the valentine kings of leapfrog

leavers of coal in the Christmas stockings
of the deposed.

oh child of the bitter playgrounds
find your place
beyond this stick figured human race.

clap the erasers together until there's thunder
in summer pools you'll not go under
on the last day on earth

when it's you who volunteered, isn't it?
in coloured chalks on a tear washed board
in your very own handwriting

exactly what's written here...

mary angela douglas 11 june 2015; 12 march 2016