Wallpaper

The wallpaper
carrying yesterday’s sunshine and birds and calendar papers
lies in tatters on the floor,
the indomitable time machine pushing forwards
ramming its mindless way through flesh cells
and celestial bodies
and eternally irretrievable reasons for I’m sorry’s.

A new layer
already peeling at upper edges
the more the new day advances,
its sun drunk-red,
its birds tired,
its calendar pages’ ears already between impatient fingers
too eager to pull and tear,
soon to join yesterday’s putrefying leftovers
and all those other long gone long evaporated yesterdays
red marked for the terrible sorrows of Luther King the Martin
and Elvis the Pelvis and Teresa the Mother,
and my mother
The mother.

Birth paired by death,
the absolute irrevocable binary relationship
ridiculously compensated with inanimate in-between souvenirs
recorded on those man-made idolatry carriers –
celluloid, and magnetic dust, and copier powder.

I count the layers still to go,
melancholic nostalgia little by little
giving way to bubbling buds of excitement
as I check meteorological bulletins for scheduled sunrise times
as if they own them,
and chase birds all over my courtyard
to keep them away from the cat,
and keep peeking through the following calendar pages
till they yellow like a smoker’s finger tips...
so many still?... and yet less than before...

I brush my teeth and shine my shoes and wax my buckle
waiting in restless anticipation
for the last layer to wither away
when beyond a new sun and new birds and a new calendar page
you fall into my arms.
It’s when I stop counting, scared.
It’s when I start my life, again.