The Woman Who Woke In Different Years

The Woman Who Woke In Different Years

Every night she slept inside her bed,

Then woke somewhere completely out of place,

One evening in the winter of 1983,

The next beneath a stranger’s ageing face.

She kept detailed journals by the bed,

Terrified the memories would blur,

Each morning brought another borrowed life,

Another decade stitched beneath her skin.

One night she woke inside a crowded train,

Smoke and panic filling every aisle,

Passengers were screaming through the dark,

While flames crawled slowly mile after mile.

Another time she stood beside a grave,

Rain soaking through a black and heavy coat,

An elderly man collapsed beside the stone,

Repeating words that caught inside his throat.

She started recognising certain faces,

A child with silver eyes appeared each year,

Always standing silently nearby,

Watching her with something close to fear.

Eventually she woke inside a ward,

Machines surrounding someone pale and weak,

A nurse leaned close and softly called her name,

Though somehow she was far too old to speak.

The silver-eyed child stood beside the bed,

Now grown with lines carved deeply in his face,

He whispered she had travelled all her life,

Searching for the moment she could stay.

She woke once more inside her present room,

Morning pressing gently through the blind,

Though on the table sat a photograph

Of every life she’d carried through her mind.