the cloth that covers the dead... wrapping it and wrapping it around your wound...

under the bridge the twinkling

swollen hands encounter the twinkling ground,

fingers root in disintegrating remembrance,

funnel that opening up to rain

& there comes the wash of exhaustion

down from the shining leaves to rest

amongst skin’s neat clawed-petal clasps

-

years later, wondering - what was wanted with you?

not your inner ears burnt black

nor your funny mouth

stitched closed

 - that figure stumbling

across a full wet field under a box of your books, greasy shawl sun-cooked

heels slicing grass into the mud’s suck

– she came to the pavilion to give your books away, and who wants them now?

fireworks into the damp bushes, awkward

pauses in the pub

you becoming unknown, plummet

through rent discussability

-

pavilion’s hot and stuffy or cold and stuffy and the floorboards flex.

couples step enclosed compulsions, systolic circuits against breath,

sweat, talk, - yes, like this,

learning displacement

(throw one beat out, skip it across a green surface

into the jaws of an eel)

in the space in your chest desire falls

dinner with YL - at my place is a rice wrapper, and written on it a line that the woman next to me translates something like - the cloth that covers the dead... you wrap it and wrap it around your wound...


"YL I have to say you are the happiest poet I've ever seen-"
"-well, the first thing is that poetry isn't made on the face"

& then there's "nightmare inspiration"

an ocean of the dead    like iron, giving off a fishy smell 
the rusty sunlight has passed by 
sniffs at you like an old dog 
a dog staring    the scene is particularly clear from the bridge

over and over you wrap the shroud around your wound - 


hello again Carmen of the cream skin your hair cerise then violet then umber then fuschia, weekly, daily changes framing silence we're 13 silence in french class if you have to your accent is better than anyone's

when we're 18 there you go grafton bridge

hello Carmen the accent of your past, mum and dad soothing bedtime tears with weed, green weeds linking so many feet together

hello dog, dear friend, hello dog

under the bridge now do I kiss, whose swollen hands becoming ground and ground becoming  - a language, rooted in inchoate remembrance, opening to rain, rain washing the black carbon, sulphur, exhaustion from the shining leaves. now do I kiss who, who, who.

shining, leaves.

hello you.

I wrapped your shroud around my wound many times. your ears, on the inside, were black. you were fried but the make-up was good.



slow images bubbling up in front of the drowsing fingers - the motorbike, the motorbike
the red motorbike in the driveway, this meant nothing

till I remembered the motorbike I sold
till I remembered the motorbike you said
I'm going to drive it off the fucking bridge
(easy easy)
drunken beast in yellow plastic roaring no,
no you don't, if you loved me you wouldn't treat me like this

operatic

tentative fingers darling plumb your old helmet


prepare it for sale



check the tag for size



& on my fingers comes the smell of rancid skin


 (I pours like sand in a funnel into itself. am I ok? am I ok? embellishment of sand, a funnel for sand made of sand. of course I's not ok. wants to stop here, in a tragedy of gagging in the sink

only, nothing stopped there or started there, more questions, open your eyes

It was at a conference in a school gym. I was about to leave for the southernmost city and we fought. I told you how much I hated you - was jealous of your intelligence and hated my stupidity. You knew and understood and said some things back, and some things about being older - it was enough and we embraced - you wrapped your legs around my waist and I held you like that for ages and ages, we cried, we kissed passionately, not sexually, you were light and I supported you with my hands on your back - I could feel how lively you are in your whole body, and this energy like a frustrated rocket forward into dark, nothing to do with me. The conference went on wrapping up behind us but the little kids were running around and playing where we were - R was in the background, T took a photo, M's little daughter, now a toddler, came and talked to us about why, why, why....

after listening for a while I was sure the sound was from either a radio or a television - not live people. I didn't remember a tv or radio in there but now I felt safe enough to open the door. the mirror was almost still, reflecting just the net curtain. speakers - the sound was coming from the two dusty black speakers on the empty bookshelves. a local radio station. it was soft and fuzzy, much quieter than it had seemed from outside the door. there was no radio attached to the speakers, just an old amplifier. perhaps the speakers were picking up the signal through electrical interference. it was a quiet conversation about a WWII protest action, the recount of someone who had helped to turn back the Fascists on a suburban street.

the streets were wet, running with water, shining with coloured light. the drains were full and gurgling. I hd an idea of the route Lacey would take on her morning walks with Jose, down to the park by the lake and I planned to follow it. There were so many ways she could have been caught along the way, or even distracted.

construction crew at the end of the street

and then that was it, that was the end.
stray cat with a stubby tail sits under a tipped over bicycle. brown cat brown like wood. stub ends at an angle like the stubs of all these cats that come and go below the window, like their tails have all been cut off the same way.

 here in the bed giving up my structures. just swollen legs and clothes everywhere. knickers on a hanger, skirts for the ironing bag but the maid's stopped coming so why put them in. sheets for changing sometime. prickly heat powder, other powders. and the books. books with pages wrinkled from water on the bathroom floor. fruit flies around a mango skin.

returning you to the rocks and stones.
returning you to the arms of the air. returning the air to the arms of the air and returning the air to me. opening the coffins of the waiting, flicking the lighter and hearing the hiss of the gas. the hair at the back of your head catches colour as you walk to the other side of the room, ask her to dance. my hand touches the hair at the back of his head, on the the horizontal wound, the new blood welling before his collapse. a woman is standing in the bath, concerned with the soap on her legs, and when his weight comes into my arms the front door's still open. returning you to the rocks and the stones. returning you to the arms of the air. the colour of your hair returning the sun on the water and the smoothness of your step returning to - returning to -

where is that? it is in my hips but not there, in any hips, in any hand coming again to its work in love, this hour, that hour, yes, now, ten minutes, five, holding the book open and walking with the pages turned to the walkway lights, three steps on and the light falls out into dark, open, walk, three steps on and the dark falls down into milk, to a haze of moths and running geckoes, down into the lines on the page here black for any mouth, any walking is my coming, anyone's the long abductor muscles, tight, pinging on each step holding that me in to me in the walking that goes on, the walking that is ready for longer, ready for the open practice of you, him, my hymn now my you and you now just him (no, interim, his coming through long steps into the night of your head injury, taking it, your weight in my spine and my arms spreading to lift that self up and out

Down the end, turn right, and then last on the right at the end of that corridor.

The room is bright green on two walls - glass, with a spacious, full garden spreading out before the road. The doctor is standing, talking softly to a grey and white bird that hovers outside, clattering lightly against the glass.

Yes, what can I do for you today? he says, then remembers me as he turns back to the room. 

-How are the hands then? Are you due for another letter? 

I take a seat and give him my hands, which he checks over, turning them and gently bending the fingers one by one. 

-They're worse, I think, despite the steroids? 

-Yes, a little worse. Not too painful, but they don't want to move. 

-Why do you think they are worse? 

The bird has moved to the eastern window, and now is hovering quite near me. 

I want to tell him but I don't. 

-I'm due back at work next week. 

-But you can't go. I will write you a letter for another week, but we must try to get to the bottom of this. Is anything different? Are you sleeping? 

-I'm still at my friend Lacey's place. She's helping. We're helping each other. But they've had to go away, and I'm having some trouble with the sleeping.

He says nothing. The bird shifts around the edges of the window, collecting insects from each corner. The doctor smiles gently and so I tell him - that I need to find the dog, I won't sleep until I've found the dog, but I'm frightened to go to the places where the dog will be. 

He kisses my hands, one then the other, looks up and smiles again. 

I tell him about the pool of glistening roses laid across the street, how I feared that street was where I'd begun to lose Jose. I tell him how I'd shut the spare bedroom door and tried to forget about it. 

-But we need to get you back to work! Don't you think your supervisor needs you? Your colleagues? 

-You could give me more steroids? 

-We are already beyond the sensible dose, my dear. There's nothing for it. You must open up the spare bedroom door, open the window, find the dog.

I stand to leave. The grey and white bird becomes frantic, now throwing its whole body against the glass. 

-Is there something else? the doctor asks. 

I don't know how to describe it. My hands are warm where he kissed them.

-Is it possible that by doing this, by going through the window, I would make certain things happen?

-Of course. By doing anything  - or not doing anything - you make things happen.

-But is it possible that if I don't go that way, the rose pool won't be there?

He stands up and opens a high panel in the window, drops a handful of seed onto the ledge below. He doesn't answer me. 

-I'm worried about Lacey and her family, I tell him. 

He closes the window. -Then find a way to keep them safe. You can find a way. Take my card, my dear, and call me if you need to.