for Heather (incomplete)

1.

there’s three weeks between us, but i’ve known you ever since we sat down and took out our pencils, scratching initials and asymmetrical shapes into plastic tables. i wondered if you were new like the year, or if the mouth explaining whispers was a translation. you’ve always been the girl upstairs, the one with a foreign name who cries at most films and knows too much for her own good; the one who stops by the door to take a flower in her fist and steps barefoot into a lake to see if she will float.


3.

today you shove your way past me and i protest although i owe you money. when people talk we stand back like there’s a potential fire we can’t get too close to, a fire that will burn off the tips of our noses if ignited. you eat in silence and tell me love is killing you, looking around hastily to see if anyone’s listening. the bell’s ringing, your face is falling, but i disagree while leading you forward with my hand still on your back.

REDUX

Met you hours ago, under
a January sky
crossed with telephone wires,
hiding what I offered
in a brown paper bag.

We’ve too much in common;
how we flinch at the sun
and blink too often,
like we’ve just been born
and our eyes are barely open.

I think we’re in a picnic.
You’re on your knees
in stiff sandals
clearing up whatever’s left,
burying bones like a dog.
Almost bee-stung, jam
in the gaps of your toes;
crumbs still falling
down your shirt.

EVERYTHING REMINDS ME

still crisp,
cornflakes are drying up
with not so much as a crackle.
so is spilt milk, wet and luminous;
smeared over and beyond
a table’s edge
like paint remover.

no preamble to stop me
from wandering past fences,
craning my neck to look into
half-lit rooms, trespasser
not allowed.
hand in empty pocket, right eye in sky,
red brick ahead.

i don’t know when
i started reading newspapers
or when children began to wear sweaters
five sizes too big;
don’t know beginnings, or this frost.

everything reminds me of postcards
because you aren’t around.

i am actually writing love poetry! i think i shall compile them into a series called Nine Poems, or something equally pompous.

JUST PILLOW TALK

rain's heavy static
enters through a hole in the wall;
a warning sign

not unlike stamps and boxes i’ve saved,
kittens of your smile
left on trees in the backyard.

i’m learning not to sleep alone,
folded arms, foetal position
curled towards you.

permanence is filtered like a bad thought
in our twin citadels
of hurried touch and lunch tomorrow.

YOU BAKED COOKIES

1.

you baked cookies last summer
when seconds stuck to our skin
and i stole dough
that hadn't ripened or risen
by the handful, off a blue bowl.

2.

i'm shuffling past domesticity,
dishes unwashed, crumpled couch.
losing my touch
in the complexity of water
and paint-covered rags that
never dry, even in sleepy heat,
even before a thunderstorm.

3.

pasted a picture of you
on my refrigerator
yesterday evening by kitchen lights,
spanish tiles, and a whiff of burned
aluminium foil.

got lost in an airplane
somewhere over the Pacific, luggage in hand, heart
in dry mouth.

it was twelve o' clock,
we had maps and a broken compass.

DINNER AT EIGHT

i thought i wanted cold cereal
and seven-pm television,
but instead i’ve framed your face in a plate,
set it in white detergent.

like tablecloth
we're flat. you're dull tonight,
a stained napkin in my lap
while i shift my gaze to the tiles.
shoelaces and worn socks are better

than watching you
on the other end of
a spaghetti strand.
i almost have you in my mouth.

every now and then you pause
and ask, is this?

no, it’s not.

man sits at a table, orders food, while his head
almost falls into his lap.

PHOTOGRAPH

i'm holding a camera, pressing on the shutter
in the dark. my own red-eye
flashing a bathroom mirror.

sweat gathers on my knees;
exfoliated in a second, salt drops
to strands of hair, a hint of
shadow. floor.

i’m wearing a new shirt, crinkled sleeves
nudging my hands apart
while i hold a showerhead
to the ceiling,
grainy window, grey sky.
your aftershave on my cheekbone,

one leg in the sink.

for Chemistry homework. no, really.

SOLID

i am hard,
steady monolith
sinking down;

a definition of my own,
an army of small soldiers
tightly wound together.
regiment one, two, three.

incompressible and immovable,
grey and dense but
begging you not to break me.

LIQUID

i am mild,
waiting to be mixed or drunk.

bend down and draw a ripple,
or examine your reflection
in me.

i have no waves, flowing
where you pour me,
assuming the form you wish;
in glass i can be a star or circle,

but a puddle on my own.

GAS

i am light,
i’ve filled you to the brim
but left you feeling empty.

inhaled, i wake you
or choke you;
no limits can bind me, no chains
can hold me down.

today people passed right through me.
detached and distant,

i’m drifting up and away.

(previously unposted, for someone special)

you’re gone for now, in a city of cars, trucks, earthquake buildings.
i didn’t say bye, i tried to whisper. but it got lost
among suitcases, suffocated in the smoke of aeroplanes. 9 pm –
i’m delayed, i’m too late.

~

under neon lighting, slit-eyed girls with white legs apart: i see you
in jacket, alone, like you always say. walking towards
what you have to term home
till after Christmas.

faces change. aching to accept a cigarette,
you see Japanese men in business suits
who tilt their clean-shaven heads
in greeting. the hotel’s empty and so are your eyes.

~

my journey lags on, plunging into dark morning
and turbulence. days are quiet; i don’t miss your voice
but will i hear it again?

~

skin is fleeting, it’s all the same. love
hit you at a street corner, when you least expected it.
all but killed by speed
at the age of thirteen. you tasted the blood on your lip,
saw the damaged mailbox you used
to send her a letter last year.