30
The world breathes and you are a shadow.
This requires breath — these colours, this space, this gravel.
You skate and trip and the skin comes off your palm,
but you pick yourself up because you’re young.
And too bad you can’t see how the world holds you
and sun lightly touches your cheeks.
That are at once tear- and whisky-stained.
From the dive bar where the guy told you about
things you’ll never remember, cus of the cheap bourbon haze.
And you played a song on the jukebox at noon
and it felt like midnight, head in your glass,
eating the hotdog, just one of them, the old crusty dudes —
oh hell, you were so young — you asshole. Stop moping.
Look in the mirror and feel as good as you are.
Look people in the eyes and let ‘em see your face.
Brush the hair out of it. Stand up straight like Mom said.
And smile even when you are sober.
Then leave behind the pool tables, the bottles.
Step into the sun again amidst two tall palms that hold you,
the ones that say, the world has missed you.
Forest at 2am
Impulsive and against conscience,
with you in spite of me.
My canopy was ink above —
mine for stumbling along this path
previously, and declaring them my trees.
Tonight, though, they are ebony.
And so this void is alien, and as its
pioneers, belongs to you and me.
You know as well as I
what the dark conceals,
and where the fork leads.
And blind I may as well be,
hurtling through space.
We are not in this galaxy.
I tremor, face to face —
you hold me as I seize.
And no one has done this to me;
I am out of character.
For once, I overheat.
So why so shivery?
Collapsed on soil, dirty but indifferent,
dumb, voiceless, inarticulate —
and just when quakes subside,
we touch fingertips.
Shudders resume, would that I could speak,
but you seemed content to humour me,
to sit in silence and smile, and all
in spite of me.
You lie with me.
This
I’ve loved you in lifetimes past.
The day by the bush, staring at its berries,
While I followed the sun’s arc
Inching away from the shade,
I loved you then.
That day sitting on my couch
Enveloped in grey space,
The whiteness of a house unlived in,
The hum of the fridge,
I loved you then.
You were the tiniest movement
Of the breeze
And the allness of a boring day
And I loved you,
Every inch.
That was you.
August Sky
It is still light — the horizon at nine.
Something about the coral sky
and its lavender, lapping waves —
you would have loved to see it.
I would gladly pass on my eyes.
Planes through pastel like
seraphim, butterflies.
Where is the pink born?
Who lets it spill
on those billowed cliffs?
You are near dead.
Your soul may have left.
I hope you are flying through
this painting of paradise.
Hiking Rest
I wonder what you would say,
sitting next to me on this stump.
Everything is dead but the birds and the wind.
Your breathing would be louder than all that is alive,
nestled in my ear, cool on my back.
Whatever you chose to say,
it would be perfect
for staring into dry brush
at nothing.
Paracetamol
Gurning you were, bursting
at the seam. His footsteps and your
scream. Twisted six octaves high, filled
my gut. Dizzied my eyes. Your silhouette slashed
on lunar sky. A tremor, your cry – spastic tears
invisible in black,
I thank God for that.
He has spared my eyes
but not my ears. Spared my eyes, for one more night.
Now – falsettos through paper walls. I gag. I do
not think you were crying out – perhaps you
laughed out loud. But from now on, you shut your mouth.
You shut your mouth.