I wake in a low-budget B-movie
memories are confiscated
experiences dissolved
expectations truncated
I yell out for the script
and an unsympathetic voice
tells me to get dressed and ad lib
as if my life depended on it.
Angered and confused,
I push at a wall and,
much to my surprise,
it does move
I push at an impinging house
then a sturdy but sad building
then a small city of structures
then a little larger city
the downtown district only
push and push
exertion exceeding memory
cleverness well past experience
mind’s eye traded for expectation
until everything is moved
to a more comprehensible location
and I can get on with the magic tricks
I have been working on for years
and years.
Canadian fiction writer, poet, and playwright J. J. Steinfeld lives onPrince Edward Island. He has published two novels, Our Hero in the Cradle of Confederation (Pottersfield Press) and Word Burials (Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink), nine short story collections, the previous three by Gaspereau Press - Should theWord Hell Be Capitalized?, Anton Chekhov Was Never in Charlottetown, and Would YouHide Me? - and a poetry collection, An Affection for Precipices (Serengeti Press). His short stories and poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and periodicalsinternationally, and over forty of his one-act and full-length plays have been performed in Canada and the United States.