Cassandra

By Lydia Clay-White

Her mind is like the city

Rarely dark, even at night

and never quiet. In some

corner there is always

something stirring (foxes

crying, babies howling)

shadows cast at 2, 3, 4 am

amidst a blue-tinged

orange glow.

Relentless fragments of

a not-so-golden tomorrow.

Disaster and

acceptance: mixed at equal

levels through the aux.

A concentrated chaos

racing to and from

her thoughts.

Behind eyes which

glare like headlights

(light from candles, lights

from phones) she minds as

blinds in empty windows

wait for someone not-

quite-home. She loops the

tape and plays it back over

(and over again), a quiet

keeping-track of all

beginning, middle, and

in years to come they’ll

call her mad. Their

‘takes on her’ disrupt

the only peace she

(almost) had.

Her mind is like the city

Full of rage, flecked with pity.

If the world would just

Shut up. long enough

that she could form the

sounds between her mind’s

eye and her tongue –

instead, they foam around

her mouth, choking her

before she manages to

spit them out. But if she

could, well –

who’d believe her anyway?

Just a thought.

Meanwhile, blue-gold on

concrete beckons in the

roaring of another day.