Adjustment

Poem in Cottage Reader: Adjustment

Do a running stitch on the wound

Where the old photograph was oozing out

Make sure you adjust the volume

Coming from that pendant in the jewellery box

Hide familiar words on high tension wires

With spaghetti, tomato sauce and cheese

While you cut the tears out of your hair

Fix the fireflies on your black chemise

Eat the gaps between your fingers

Remember to water the flowers kept in books

Submerge your eyes in the stop bath daily

Fix the rewinding with a Plaster of Paris mouth

Dip the tip of your pen in freshly made brine

And strap your stomach to the brain

When you walk, throw bread crumbs for a trail

You never know when you want to be sought out

Make a papier-mâché mask

By beating pieces of poems to a pulp

Adjust its tones to suit your changing premise

From colour, to sepia, to black and white

Then take a compass and trace your phobias

When you reach a hand littered with little stick-on eyes

Enter the television and enact your favourite scene

But, always stay away from static, in the early hours of morning