Zones of Avoidance (an excerpt)

I’m reading ‘The Confessions of an English Opium Eater’ –

I want to understand what drove my daughter out

 

in the snow with no coat or socks, in search of a fix.

I want to understand what divinity led her

 

to set up camp in the derelict ‘pigeon house’

after running out of sofas to surf.

*

I was a Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds girl myself.

I liked the way it made inanimate objects move

 

until that day in Balham when my guy sang Rock n Roll Suicide

from a third floor window and an Alsatian leapt

 

from the wood grain of the station door

and policemen were penguins in disguise.

*

Tough Love. The mantra of the support group

for those beaten by their loved one’s addiction.

 

When I was busted at nineteen and the bedsit landlord

tipped my belongings onto the street, the last person

 

I would’ve turned to was my mother.

You’ve made your bed. Lie on it. Lie on it. Lie on it.