Backwards

 by Brett Rutherford

Is where we wake
from where we sleep
the same, or other?

What if the morning clock
ran counter-clock
and the numbers read
12-11-10 instead
of 12 - 1 - 2 - 3; 

what if I see
the letters run backward
on my computer screen,
not mirror, but everything
turned wrong-way round?

Hot and cold faucets
now cold and hot; a jar
I try to open unlids
by turning right, not left.

The books are now shelved
from Z to A, each title indexed
in reverse order. I seem
to remember tomorrow
and I have no idea
what will happen yesterday.

 It could be worse,
forward, backward,
right, left, time past
and time to come
I can learn to deal with.

 I could be upside down,
you see, my bed up there
on the ceiling, my tea
refusing its cup and flowing
up and out the window.

 I could, on hands and knees,
crawl up the street, or stand
and hurl myself from pole
to parking meter, each step
at peril of sending me skyward.

 Better it is to stay
asleep, and spin the odds
of waking up where left
is left and right, right,
my bed awhirl
among a maelstrom
of gravity's variants.

 (Illustration for Poe's "Descent into the Maelstrom" by Harry Clarke.)