Mustard Tree

Drifting in a lightless undeciding haze,

Plodding, plumping up, measuring interiors,

He missed the path somewhere back aways,

Forgot his own advice and took the travelled road.

But now the whale's meandered back

And spat him on a half-remembered track.

In his slippered feet he stands

Considering, back and forward,

Reckoning by the unrisen sun that rises with his rising sap.

Then, sniffing the warm sea and the light

gathers his fairweather clothing tight

slips the comfortable latch

and becomes the man the nurses couldn't catch.

They follow with torches, swarming, pleading, calling,

But he knows how to hide,

nips behind a tree

dodges grinning in a doorway,

pixellated in party snaps.

What? Those people don't even know his real name.

He is Don Quixote, the Man of La Mancha,

always on the attack,

looking for the one who'll love him back.