Peter Johnson

Illud Tempus

I loved her another life, not the one where I stood on the bow of a great wooden ship overhearing Voltaire ruminate on syphilis, or the one where a nervous Hispanic disconnected the cable-TV. But another life, unwritten about, with a murky quality of a dream. We had parents, and morning was signalled by howling from the woodshed. It was not unusual to come upon knights grooming their horses in the hot fields. You could ask them questions. All was well except for the talking beetle who squatted on the edge of a tulip and warned us of the future.