Hi Mark,
As usual I’ll say what bells this rings for me.
Your first line leads me to “Michigan seems like a dream to me now”. (Simon & Garfunkel) which has the same metre.
I remember when avocados were something weird and wonderful in the UK. Kids around the country would suspend the stones over jamjars of water to see what they might grow into.These days my kids think that avocados are what toast is for.
Ah bladderwrack. Slippery slimy and popping under your toes as you ran along the beach. Fucus vesiculosus. We studied it for biology “O” level.
Tobacco stained fingers ferreting down the back of the sofa is also a familiar thing. It was usually where I ended up trying to find my cheap clipper cigarette lighters. And I would often dredge up long lost treasure there – from postcards to pencil-sharpeners, So “shipwreck” works for me. (And “crook” is just the right word too.) I didn’t quite get how the pale dregs of evening fit in there, but that may be because I thought the tobacco-stained fingers and the sofa was a single memory and I expected the final line to follow on from them, whereas I can see now that they are each isolated images.
I did enjoy the seeming self contradiction of the unreal being true. And the return to the avocado stone was very satisfying.
Cheers
Joe
|