John Greaves

Bad Alchemy

John Greaves


I dream Hermaphrodite and I sit up all night
Our eyes on the horizon of a wobbling bowl
Heads in hands we ponder dregs the bowl contains
A liquid's left putrescence after being drained

What we feel we have to solve
Is why the dregs have not dissolved

When I wake I wonder what it means
Am I bad alchemy? It seems
I image self unmixed, a risk,
In a dish for drinking
Fluid with a strongly stinking sediment
Is that what it meant?

I dream Hermaphrodite and I sit up all night
Our eyes on the horizon of a wobbling bowl
Am I hermaphrodite?
Neither one nor quite the other?

What we feel we have to solve
Is why the dregs have not dissolved