oneill
I lean on your doorframe
I know you won’t be there
Your car’s not on the lawn
From the hallway
I don’t hear you laughing
It’s quiet
You arrived quiet, trusting
A tiny universe nestled into my neck and chest
How could such a small cottage
Become so empty?
Every day is a jewel
Every smile a sun
Every heartbeat is
spectral tongue
across the lunar code we beam
our breath swirling into the desert
to return wicked
when the stars have clumb
to full magnitude
and we lay doggo
overthrown
return’d to our spirit ghosts
for we are never still
wandering like campsmoke
in thin strands
out to the stand of york gums
where honey possums hide
along the tangled seeps
fringing the floodplain
he found a petal here once
tossed in the aeolian temper of high january
beyond the osprey's clifftop sticks
past the curve of the bay
where the wet sand hummed
and the weight of his body
stood beside him in the restless water
and he himself a stripped, weathered refection
he lay on the sand by the water's edge
foam-licked
ear down listening to the groan
a giant jawbone sleeping,
the wet moss scent of ambergris
he rolls to his back on the powdered cove
leant into life
leant into death
he found a petal here once
tossed in the aeolian temper of high january
beyond the osprey's cifftop sticks
past the curve of the bay
where the wet sand hummed
and the weight of his body
stood beside him in the restless water
and he himself a stripped, weathered refection
he lay on the sand by the water's edge
foam-licked
ear down listening to the groan
a giant jawbone sleeping,
the wet moss scent of ambergris
he rolls to his back on the powdered cove
leant into life
leant into death
the sun lays upon me
warming what was numb
I dreamt you
until the darkness faded
and as I moved mechanically
through the cottage
out onto the high porch
patches of dreamt-you
kept running through me
like cold water
shocks from a showerhead
know this,
if you rained on me
then I have stood by the fire
but I am chilled
I shiver
Post
in the rapid flowing water
where hearts race downstream
there is no understanding
of death
we hear, perhaps
or briefly wonder,
until.
the efferent globe
off its axis
still spins
so,
you set your alarm
make your bed
find yourself in the mirror
brush your teeth
swallow the demon
and face the day
the cottages shiver below a bald moon
we lay huddled, still
our pragmatic, rational dreams
softly snake up kitchen chimneys
like incense
like lines of wet laundry
crossing the yards
the yellowed street lights
in unison close an eye
the darkness softly spirals
slack tide
schoolyard, reception, fabricators
frozen in ice
the youngest coughs between us
I roll slowly
don’t twist your back
you drift when the coughing stops
I drift in a murmur
the money
will come
soon with intimate blindness
I repeat the procedure
hi viz, boots, thermos
sandwiches you packed while I slept
idle the car just so
you will hear it, stir
make a pot
of tea
fall with me
let go
love is an accident
you wanted so badly
longing
all the towering hours
for one
to empty yourself into
galaxies of spreading stars
touch me
fingers I have ached for
find my face
as I trace
the handwork of god
swim across green pools
in you
I am delivered
Arctic white butterflies
land upon my lover
and our sleeping children
I am composing a piece on death
to play alone, in darkness
each brittle note
a tap against glass
then an hour’s silence
the butterflies’ lightness -
falling petals
on the skin of my loves
their breath
trembling translucent wings
makes me cry
each tear a note in the score
I have laid
milk, honey at the table
in the morning
blue wrens will flit at the window
but tonight
arctic white wings
open and close
to the sounds of breath
my workings
and glass keys
i watch you sleep
the isles
ebb
a tide
tugs at me
I kiss a breast
in 2010
another in 1990
above the bed
an open widow
heat pours in
cascading
over slicked limbs
I imagine
dying for you
I close my eyes
listen
outside
the heat devours
clicking things
our breath and mine
tilting the room
our shapes
becoming abstract
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