What did you expect?

V, patient detective, counts toothbrushes in the cup, four she thinks, is it three, one electric, but I was hoping for a tiger with something in her mouth. Cub or prey? Albo może mały biały domek, floating, maybe a little white house. Instead this blue cell, shiny, scrubbed, contained inside itself. Not even a view. Opaque blind. Pastel pink and blue walls. Every enamel surface polished, white as teeth. Na spienionych falach mórz/on foaming waves of sea.

I expected an abstract, curves for waves, sculpted or smudged in orange patches of cloud, sunset above Maroccos, walking into it. Walking into it. I was expecting an unknowness. This is too familiar, domestic, a logical conclusion.

What gave me hope was the mirror. Oval, blue-framed in which I saw the outline of a door, open I think, leading out from the small enclosure into what you couldn’t see. A hint of light, barest play of shadow round the frame, still clean, still white – you could tell it had recently been painted – but leading somewhere, that was the main thing.

Now sheets of rain, the cat runs in, the bay tree outside rustles and the sky is steel grey, no, smoke grey, flint smoke grey with enough blue z mych dziecinnych snów a tygrys wraca/the tiger returns carrying something and pads through lasy/forests i piasek/and sand z mych dziecinnych snow/from my childhood dreams i razem z nią/and with her walking out. Raw.