P. A. Erskine

This Business of Size

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I became so small once I was as small as the pages
I started essays on and crumpled up, crumpled up
so by the end of the night the floor was littered
with clenched fists of paper. I looked all the time like a girl
but all the time I was pieces of paper. I still rode my bike
to the market or to lectures, in a red knitted cape,
or in a blue denim jacket, and I looked like a girl
but the whole time I was paper and unfinished sentences
or a silver pill box with a green stone in the lid
very hard to open and the whole of my head
was inside it. I looked like a girl and could see leaves
turning yellow and the mist drifting up from the river
but all that time I was trying to find where
my mind was and where was everyone else?