the only way out by sea
the freedom and the emptyness!
but not even I expected forty days and more
a tougher vigil than the wilderness
sleeping a bare four hours out of twenty-four
and when the gunboat came
hazily I felt them lift me aboard
expecting only to hear my number called -
Number 6! Number 6! Come in -
limp on the makeshift raft I built my time
was up all right - they threw me in.

the cold salt in my mouth still I caught
them, turned the boat
more nightmare journey with the desparation turning in my throat to fear
a light flashed on a shore - they fought
me off again but some coastline was very clear ...

in exhaustion dreams at the tide's margin
of my left-handed self
when they made me a mirror image
I lay, numb of feeling, of all sense bereft
beached like some sea-apparition
I floundered on pebbles and collapsed at a pool
suddenly conscious I saw a reflection
- recoiled from a tattered and bearded fool
was this a face from the dream or the vision
or was it myself?
my own
right-handed self?

my own self alone
once more I could walk
I climbed the white cliffs and walked over the down
once more I could talk
I found out the way and I found myself home

I arrived in the city the day before my birthday.
But things had changed: I had been so long away.

There was my house, and outside it, my car
it all seemed the same - the door was ajar
but there was a woman, with shrewd green-gold eyes
regarding me, dirty stranger, with amused surprise

returning to places, retracing footsteps where
things have happened, and to find
a stranger there lurking:
things perhaps have only happened
in the mind -

she believed me, she helped me, she fed me -
I thought after all it was some kind of homecoming, and told her the date
with a laugh, but it mattered, and she seemed to care.

Returning to places, retracing the same roads where
actions have been taken, and to find
strangers there working
strangers with recognised faces
similar attitudes in familiar places
- things have happened
to me! I was number six
but I am free

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