1001 Nights Now

Atop my blue-biroed Christmas list, one wish
in green ink, drizzled
from my favourite, least-used space pen.

Please bend the frames of days.
Give me enough time
to handwalk a marathon, string together
enough paper chains to mummify E. Honda,
watch every episode of every sitcom
ever to feature the phrase "uh-huh",
sort my record collection
into "strongest scent" order, or
"most crackles" order, or
any order in which
four out of five senses
play no part in the categorisation.

Give me the loose change in minutes,
so that I can take time out
to talk to street fundraisers,
see them as warm, pulsing humans,
not piles of talking cardboard boxes
stacked in the way of my quest
for a mocha.

And I need this time not
at some loosely promised point
in the future, when my legs
are jelly and my hair wire wool,
but now, when my limbs are a springboard
and my arms elastic band guns
firing thing
after vital thing
into time slots, winning
the ultimate goldfish of destiny.

Signed, licked, I push the wish
into the hearth.
Stubborn, it flops on the electric fire
and I curse.