Sotirios Pastakas

Nocturnal Readiness

Dreams of abandoned order keep me company
each night. The unfinished novel
of married life, the endless harping
on the same thing, passion and its painful
consequences: ready now, and in all concience,
I must settle old scores,
get my own back, even though the digit clock
shows only 3.43: the present, I say, is
an illusion of a well-arranged past.
And yet, when I get up to sever
with my word the sinister plot, I wear
my slippers back to front, and the last few
drops always fall outside the bowl.