Opening Shot

By Poetry Review Editor Fiona Sampson, written for the launch of Open Magazine

This is not a dream.
Open the door.

Pale walls,
dark carpet on parquet flooring
 
and a paint smell
which reminds you of long ago,
 
end of summer,
 maybe classrooms –

the thought slipping away       
as your feet sink in hush-hush carpet.

And you’re self-conscious, even a little stagey –
new at this –

as you move to the door opposite
to meet the dazzle
     of arc lights –
 
mirrors, gilded flower-stands,
dust-sheets thrown under stepladders –

give us your best side, darlin’!
But where is everybody?

  Your footsteps
ring naively down the hall –

Thank god! for this door-handle
you find yourself clutching:

You step into a high-ceilinged studio        

where clouds race across skylight glass –
dreams
of a virtual reality –

Try the drafting table
         with a fingertip.
Dark oak shudders,

something like rumour
passing into the joists underfoot

and on
    as if the building’s coming awake
with the sound

entering your bones:
        that beat
pulsing in from next door,

climbing the muscles of your back.
So lay your palm on warm wood;

push your way in
                     to this restaurant:
the air heady with garlic and tamarind,

tables in inviting disarray,
and the brass-handled exit flapping

like everyone just left…

              The window
catches a skyline various as a meze,

street-hubbub of leather, saffron
and denim blue…
  
      You’ve no idea
what any of this means.

But you know you’ll go on,
chasing the party

for as long as it takes:
since it’s all               
one long tracking shot, after all –

And your eyes
are wide open –                        

Fiona is editor of the Poetry Review. Her latest book is Common Prayer (Carcanet 2007 )