Time Travel

[poliphilo]

I was lying in bed last night rewriting the lame final stanza of a poem from fifty years ago, time-travelling back to that earlier mindset, interrogating myself as to what I had been wanting to say back then but hadn't had the technique to say clearly, patching the new work onto the old so the joins wouldn't show. I don't recommend it as an alternative to counting sheep- it's far too exciting.

Something was thumping away in the distance- some machine or other- something like a steam pump. A steam pump? Really? Most unlikely. Hang on a minute. Not far away at all. Actually my heart...