Projections

 

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.