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I drift through poorly-lit, narrow passages                       

that should be Gothic, but I feel no pull               

of fear   or urgency.  My breath is even,               

my pace unhurried, deliberate: smooth.                                             

At a fork, I do not wait.                                                

Without hesitation I take the left turn.                                

 

What led me to make this turn -                                                             

to choose this of the identical passages                                               

without second thought or second’s wait?                        

Another’s sense guides, pulls,

draws me to destination smoothly.

I remain unwitting, automatous, even.

 

Unseen thread hooped at even                

intervals in the dingy walls, screws turned                       

deep in softening plaster, cord smooth                               

and strong as spider-silk, marks a passage                        

that’s been fixed for me, that I cannot pull                                                                                         

back from, a dentist’s door opening onto a crowded waiting room.      

 

I feel no concern for what waits             

for me as I pass across this web, calmly, evenly,             

until worry sidles up, begins to pull

at my composure, whispering that these twists and turns                         

emanate from my memory-palace, warped passages   

back to the past that I have hidden, smoothed over      

 

in a hole in a bedroom wall, covered in smooth                              

barely-patterned paper.  To see the cache, you have to wait

until the end of day, just before the sun passes

below the neighbour’s roof and, briefly, the uneven

patch is clear, if you know what you’re looking for, and if you turn

your cheek to the wall, looking up to the tip of the shadow of the curtain pull.

 

I fight for control and pull

back from my spectre-smooth

sleeping self, gliding onwards, gaining speed. I turn

to forcing myself back to weight 

as the shade eludes me, slides towards the contents of the wall, even

faster than before          

                                           and all I know is that I must break out of the passage turning around and

                          around on itself, pulling me along in its wake, one passage that becomes many, all

                          leading back to that smoothed-up, hushed-up hollow.

 

                                             I wake knowing enough –

                                             even my escape is clear by dreamlight.​