Just before Ashlee had to leave Ho Chi Minh City and head back to Melbourne, she told me this great anecdote about period of time when she lived with her Grandmother but there wasn’t really room for her so they fashioned a ‘bedroom’ for Ashlee behind a bookcase. I loved that idea so much I had to write a poem about it!

For Ashlee

Here, but not here;
somewhere between Alain de Botton and Theroux.
Trying to sleep
eyes tight shut
but the light filters on
shooting past fibres and glue binding
to lift your lids reminding you
that behind the bookcase is your makeshift space
within the confines of your grandmother’s living room.
Nestled snugly in quilts and musty dust
‘Kath and Kim’ and the ‘News at Ten’ interrupt
the strains of ‘Anna of the North’ that you were listening to.
Mind set, focused on day-dreams and night-time descents,
life behind the bookcase is
private and yet not private.
A wooden veneer between day and night;
‘A Room of One’s Own’.
Yet not.
A small partition;
a hermitage for a girl
branching out slowly into
adulthood.
A cocoon
or life raft.
A trial for what’s to come.