I scramble and come tumbling down
When climbing up this mountain.
I follow the contours of this country
Taking lessons in cartography,
Modelling reality into lines and dots
To communicate spatial information,
To tell you the way I inhabit myself
Correctly or incorrectly
Across a changing landscape.
I came home tonight: the tide
pulling me sideways, up-stream;
the river with its lights red and green;
the oars are a ship, and I am moving
into oceans, into the dock,
where I will find you
drifting back
from the sand.
The power went out tonight
on both sides of the street -
no street lights or anything.
I came with a torch to find you.
You needed me to pay the ferry driver.
Stumbling through the dark
the wind loud and aggressive.
The moon thin in the sky.
Tonight the tide is rushing in, heading up-stream. It pulls the boat sideways. The starboard lights flash green across the water. I pull the oars with my whole body, moving through the water, as if I were a ship guided in to dock. I don’t touch the sandbank as I cross it. The red lights flash in front of the hills. The tide is high. I won’t have to take my shoes off when I reach the beach.
I came home to the river tonight thinking I’m so glad it didn’t rain today. I don’t have to bail the boat, get my feet ankle deep in cold water. Mum has given me the key to her boat on a key ring that will float if I drop it in the water. Wise thinking. I straighten my back out, get ready to row into the blackness. The sounds of the night travel eerily across the water.
You are the edge of my conscience
The place where hope slips away
Becomes a concrete wall
I can trace my hands along
And wonder at the patterns
That might lie beyond them.
She’s real natural
Down to earth
Comfortable in her own skin.
She doesn’t spend 500 hours
In front of the mirror every day
and she doesn’t have
an eating disorder -
Always a good sign.
It seems ridiculous at our age.
Glistening slippery
on the mossy rock
I am falling down
and swimming
with my arms and legs.
My voice has fallen
down in rhythms
of rain and rocks.
Waiting to be still,
ground down
by all that water,
falling, as I am.
Or am I falling?
Or am I rocks?
And falling too?
Still moving, moving still
and repeating, repeatedly,
getting stuck. You hate it -
the repetitions, going round. You like
the falling, the moment of dissension.
Something happens too, rises up,
from the unconscious, the sub-
whatever you call it: home register
where all the thinking happens.
If I could let
You out from where
I keep you,
Let the sun see you
Stretch your limbs
In all that light,
Let your skin go brown.
You would unfold
If I could let you out
From where I keep you.
I think of spiders
webs in shady corners -
abandoned by those eight-legged creatures.
They are dusty now.
My mind is caught—distracted—
and stays there for some hours.
The sun comes through the glass,
its yellow light drifts across the surface,
then settles in the corner.
No room for introspection:
All too full for thoughtful
Reflections or consideration
For the many possibilities
On the borders if the things
Already known.
Behind the counter
An agitated presence,
With shakey hands,
Making coffee all day.
Hundreds of espresso.
Each one shakes the fringe
Back from his forehead
And creases the bend
In those sexy elbows
Bound with wild tension
That never stops moving
With a nod and smile
Remembering each name.
What line will we take
With this one?
Stranded, in between,
Without much direction.
Pull it in with the fish
Caught on the end.
Wind it round, somehow,
This reel of plastic.
