How The Shale Feels

I know how the shale feels.

That thin drifted piece, naked

in a pool of beach-cracked rock.

I know how each grain of

windswept waveswept sand

rubs a little and rubs again.

I know the effaced (un)importance

of the bedrock we press underfoot.

How it will not bend, but slowly erode.

How it will never bend,

but only snap once the scouring

is scoured enough.

I know you, you pressed out slab

of mud, once-alive remnant of

a time before, who teamed with microbe life.

I know that soft, soft weight of years,

that suffocating sleep

that slowly turns slip to stone.

And then the voice saying, We

will sit here. The tide’s on the turn.

Let us sit here and watch the slow sunset.

A good place to sit. And the hand

that touches the slab, small now,

scoured to thinness, feels the heat

of the day and the smoothness to the palm

and thinks nothing.

I know how the shale feels.

Milky Way

It is on days like this that I drink too much tea

and create a whirlpool of my stomach as the lactose settles,

and all you can say is uhuh, guhuh, your nakedness an entirety

and a subtle threat of chaos to be unleashed.

Half the world is out of your reach, your up-stretched hands

starfish, seekers, your palms maps that have not yet been written.

You describe the world as guhuh, and I drink tea and find

a galaxy threaded inside, an opening of my thoughts,

a settling of my tired eyes and star after star to string for you.

It will be years before you can understand. Astronomy. Navigation.

Myth. Hydrogen blazing in spheres and atoms out of reach.

Now you are a mountain climber, a daredevil. You can say, a-gone.

You would toss away your yolk-yellow duck and reach for

handles, books, and dip your bread in daddy’s tea and suck the liquor.

You would toss aside anything that does not suit, a king kong in the city

and your starfish hands would settle only on the inappropriate.

your havoc is mellowed with honey. The curtains are a forest,

a hideout and a shield, and I sit with my tea, and no place to hide.

Some Time Before Dinner

You cry. My head a ringing place.
Your face a freeze-frame of outraged red.
We walk and waltz and you hiccough with tears.

My body is a besieged land,
defences breached and the headquarters
inhabited by music.

In my head I am riding to Juneau.
In my head a strong man, arms like fortress walls,
holding me hard against his solid ribs.

My waltzing does not amuse you.
My tuneless singing I cannot hear.
I don’t know the words, the drums are a heartbeat.

Your hot hands cling still.
Your hands entrenched, scaling the walls.
You may conquer me yet, but my mind is lost.

Seven, Until Eight

We slip upstairs, into the half-light dark,

leaving the tadpoles playing in their pool.

Time to be together, to shade the lights.

My patience is a skeleton leaf, each vein

frayed. I pray for peace. The Middle East

has nothing on you. And I lie while

you walk the floor, and drink, and milk

hangs at the corners of your lips. Outside

the sky is aflame. The neighbours fight quietly.

Inside nothing but your feet on the floor,

your experiments with sounds,

your mouth a new toy. Outside the

deepening dusk as day gives way

to shadowed hills. You cannot fight.

You fall like an old soldier,

surrendered to the hours, at last.

Fifty Minutes, Without Adverts

Exercise is good for depression. Picking out words with poetry. Watching people move on the screen. Sleeping baby giving a surrender with his nerveless arms.

Deep breaths make light work of pain. On the screen they are spying and cycling, long ago but vivid. Actors are writers, writers act.

Doctors sometimes tell the truth. Eat red peppers and tomatoes. That may work.

Brain stutters. Baby's hands twitch. Don't wake yet. Don't wake. Let me watch my silver-hearted screen. Intrigue and the tiny movements of eyes. Six foot three and broad shoulders.

He is awake. Milk on his lips. Tiny yearling sounds. You would be surprised by what is in my heart.

He nests like a bird in the crook of my legs. Tumbles back into sleep. Sweet, hot breaths, short and fast. How will I roast a chicken by five?

The credits roll.