On my way back from the park
I notice the new billboard projection
of our futuristic neighbourhood
on the building site nearby.
Our new neighbours, all women
in eternal summer mode
tanned à laVita Liberata Body Blur Latte perhaps,
sporting sleeveless tops
and shorts or short skirts,
the type of gear you'd get away with
for a week or so here
in our ephemeral Irish summer
if you're lucky,
and all wearing shades, or sun glasses
as we'd call them,
and most of them carrying hand bags
even the ones peering from glass fronted balconies
as if they have just arrived
or are about to depart
in permanent transit
in permanent summer.
But there's one shaded damsel
who particularly alarms me.
You see, if my projections are right,
she is staring straight into my kitchen
where she can observe me, in the morning,
slicing Tesco seeded loaf for the toaster
with kitty at my feet clawing at the fridge
for another sup of milk
and the steaming kettle behind me
blow torching a whole continent
on the wall, paint peel lakes, rivers,
contours and coastline
and the morning sun casting a translucent glow
on the foreheads of my family pics
transforming each and every one of them
into haloed saints
and from her penthouse eerie
she can even see my framed postcards
featuring places I've never been to
like Lucca, the Atacama Desert and San Diego
and underneath the postcards Van Gogh's haystacks,
Wheatfield With Rising Sun to be precise,
swirling and dancing in the gaps between
( I prefer vicarious travel via postcard)
and unless she has her eyes closed behind those shades
she can see me, forehead frowning, eyes unshaded,
staring back at her, asking,
"Why the **** did you pay
over half a million for this spectacle
when you could have had a sea view
on the other side of the apartment block?"
Copyright 2022 Cathy Leonard All rights reserved.
