‘Hiccups’

and fall up –
Toast crumbs dance on the plate
hiccups –
surprising as they rise askew
through bright
morning light to the ceiling,
spring clouds of bread midges.
Beautiful. Wrong.

On the table, spoons, knives
jolt and
jounce;           pounce upright;
fire high, stab plaster.

Anchored in my chair, I’m braced,
in case, perplexed as objects                     scale the air

where the kettle                   the bread bin.
dances with

up
Tins of soup, possessed, fly       from cupboards,

halyards now, clanking overhead.
Dishwater in the sink
re-syncs,
cleaves into
un-drops of
wrong rain.

I’m constrained, hands over my head in case the world rights,
reunites crockery with gravity;

– a helium balloon of fur –
the cat ascends, transcends me now
purring on the coving,
upside down and happy.
Saved.

Plagued, I stand and my stool
overrules sense.

past my grasp.
Climbs                        The table dawdles upwards.
Cooker, fridge, freezer all
glide.

Sliding to the floor, free of crumbs, free of comfort, I calculate
weights of white goods and try to be sure
to reassure myself that, I’m just big-boned, fat,
that soon I too will soar. I lift my arms and lower,
lower
and lift
slow and lumpen,
a desperate dodo’s parody.

The cat looks down on me,                           flies free
the washing machine

but me –
I sink,
fall
further,
through
splintering
floorboards,

down.

COMMENT

Georgi Gill (aka ‘Chalk Lady’) lives in Edinburgh where she works at the Scottish Poetry Library and writes poetry whenever she gets the chance. ‘Hiccups’ was inspired by an assignment set on Jay Bernard’s Open Workshop on paradoxes.