Kaleidoscope

The Golden Book of Astronomy illuminates my bookcase still,
‘An Introduction to the Wonders of Space’
given me at five years old by my parents
playing out their own Wars of the Worlds in our lounge room.

I wanted a bride doll and had prepared her space
on a shelf near the window. No marital bed for her.
She would inhabit my room in a perpetual state of readiness
for her phantom groom:
my doppelgänger, drawn in Derwents and denied materiality.

Resigned to my loss
I quickly found the planets offered more escape.
Rings more interesting than a bridal band were Saturn’s
and the clouds of Venus moved across the page
as gracefully as a wedding dress through ether.

Mercury burned and the canals of Mars were dry. No matter.
They held the infinite possibilities of farness and survival.
Light years fell away in my room in Delbridge Street.
The moons of Jupiter were more like home.

In Room 40B of Brighton Nursing Home a shaft of light
strikes the glass beside my bed.
Prisms of memory pierce at unexpected moments
reducing me to tears, or worse,
non compos mentis.

I am eight years old and running with Spike
through the Fitzroy streets, away from Dad,
towards the stars and Jupiter.


Cathy McCallum