As if there could be something more
than the rough noise of everyday.
As if the taste of this food, this bread
this cheese were less than real, but
somewhere, close at hand maybe,
was another food that really did
still taste as it should.
As if the voices in the street,
raucous and disorganised, startling
the dark silence of the night
suddenly had unexpected meaning.
As if something longed for, long awaited,
like the first day of the holidays,
the end of the exams, was almost here
was about to be here, in the next moment.
As if, standing on that brink,
it were possible again to see, to taste, to hear. . . .

Anne Humphreys