The dregs of the afternoon
light come calling through
heavy velvet, unannounced
of course, but with news
from another room.
His ruddy, waxlike tones
steal the scene, before I
pan across to the tired row
of penguin classics; off white
and orange — centre left.
He’s not long woken
from his siesta; a dream
sequence in which Gorky
had sat in the very chair from
which I’m now his lone witness;
from where I can’t look away,
as he struggles to pull focus
through brimming eyelids.
©️Orion Foote, 2021
Visions of Orion Poetry 