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White Room


by stephen hastings-king


 

A white room is empty but for you, a card table and a chair. 

 

You wear a straw hat with a wide brim over a white scarf. Your sunglasses are television screens.  In the lenses reflection is periodically interrupted by the rolling of vertical hold.

 

You are seated. Your hands are folded on the table. Each is crowned with a ring of straw. 

 

 

 

I say: To reach you I navigated interminable rivers of glare.

 

My two reversed images flutter across black waves surrounded by snow.

 

I speak to you but I've forgotten why. 

 

Apart from my voice, the sound is a soft tangle of voltage and recurrent zones of static.

 

It is no longer you I speak to in any event.

 

Each hand is crowned with a ring of straw.

 

 

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