What If I Slipped Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

what if I slipped through the net of dreams
not returning to
familiar scenes, consensus, anything

letting the golden slipknots slip
from the tower or be reeled in
with all the hours

that may have been
and the May crownings
and the flowers wreathed

for remember whens
that did not breathe
there melting like snows away

let the margins fade with the outlines
of a face not yet come into bloom
then let me sound retreat

telegram pocketed and
never read aloud
fastening fate on another cloud

afar from the pearl and the marl of it
let the moats be closed for repairs


until further notice.
let the snows fly,
unconscious of their erasures of

or what would have been, the lies
had I chosen otherwise
it's a failing blue of the

dust of lilacs of
the paling doves from their
fairy tale branches rustling

that I have Lost
to all that entrances.
be buried deep

beyond all sleep
the wounding that
would not occur then.

then return, returning, returned
the country I have heard
in deeper and deepening music

while I learned to be
coded with all you feel or
could feel let the winds

take it all then
let the only word left be away

then say it
vanishing, on the strand.

mary angela douglas 18 june 2017