Too much coffee and not enough sleep #2

Another poem that arrived in my head following a caffeine and insomnia party. I've given up caffeine now. I wonder if I'll still write weird stuff like this.


SMOKE DOLLY

On that page, I saw her standing, a piece of shadow
shaped like her,

                        as if the daylight were afraid of her
                        and shied away;

and as she turned, I closed the book again.

I did not wish to hear that story. No-one ever knew
that I had been there.

I felt warmed by the smile she gave as the smoke
wrapped itself around her like a bridal veil.
She held out her hands and the book fell open
again, a different page of our history.

                                                       Crows laughed,
as if they were privy to our elaborate joke.
But each time we tried to touch, there was something
in the way. I pushed but it was too thick; it felt like
clotted dreams.

                       How many had I pulled from
her head before her soul was empty?

My coat is heavy on my shoulders and feels like
the skin of an old man, worn out and threadbare.
I pinch myself to stop from dreaming

                                                         and the
glass of every window shattered. Black smoke
poured out. The fireman shook me hard to wake
me from drowning in my screams;
                                                   something else was there
too, mummified grief and a tree bereft of leaves.
I choked on the size of my defiance and ran.