ONE IMPOSSIBLE THING BEFORE BREAKFAST

Alice in Wonderland
rests upon a table
in a ray of sunlight

"When is a book
not a book?"
the sunlight asks itself

I answer it
by opening
the book

it is empty
of words
only an empty space

to place
a bottle of whiskey
in

yet its emptiness
is packed
full of time

the memory
of hands
reaching into it

some of the time
spills out and becomes
now

*

An old guy I used to look after and wasn't supposed to drink. He always had the book at hand whenever I visited him. This time it lay upon the table and I picked it up saying I didn't know this edition....loved that book all my life and...a small bottle of whiskey fell out. After he died the 'book' was still there on the table empty of any words and empty of drink.