Not Dad

My father got into fights
when he was twenty;
torn shirts and muscles,
sunglasses to conceal
the broken vessels
lining his pale eyes.

Too many times
he spat out jagged teeth,
tasted blood and beer
while his knuckles stung
from the injury of another.

Years later, he threatened me
with the same. Don't you dare
call me Dad. You're lucky
I haven't broken your leg.

Maybe he loved us as savagely
as he threw punches,
or the way he watched television
in his unemployed days:

detached, puerilely amused,
fast asleep over the chatter
of a Chinese family serial.

QLRS

There is a man who lives under a bridge. It's better than it sounds. He rarely thinks about how he got there; wasn't his wife who threw him out, or his inability to pay the rent. He hated the flat, hated its low ceiling and lack of ventilation. The neighbours who nursed their troubles, quarrels forcing their way through thin walls.

He has a wooden table, cracked down the middle, damp at the sides. He tries to read the papers regularly, eyes darting over headlines, new words he makes up meanings for. Sits and sleeps on the ground, soft moss, no grass prickling his skin. The river beside him is only a river when rain falls, filling rapidly. He hears the water rush, like a distant sea, and turns his back to it. No one has stopped him yet.

West Signal

We leave the day to itself
by mild request. Thoughtless entity,
reclining in a rocking-chair;
knitting wool akin to our scattered hair,
tangled insides. While we
crouch at the doorstep, huddled in
last year's labour, hats and scarves
three sizes too big. Grooms an aged car
in concentration, brushing off dead flora,
remnants of frost. Humming low
in its parched throat, as we pause nearby.
Freeze, pressing our ears to a garage
almost as hollow.


Mexico

Sand crumbles into architecture,
territory you pour mercilessly
over arid ground.

New countries form upon a fall,
settling onto the crag of knees;
shallow rivers within your palm.

These are the edifices
we build involuntarily
with careless hands, eager feet:

Premature civilisations
yet unfounded, only obscuring
our crudely foreign tracks.


(with Ben Harrison)

I am over you
like a trembling aeroplane,

like smog-choked clouds
buoyed by pollution.

Like a thin bridge
for busy cars to ride,

slowly rusting above saltwater.


We remember each other
like history -

your body like books
opened too often

and I, a restless curator
pacing hallways

- that may
or may not repeat itself.


Easy Breathing

If a single atom
can house a universe -

and smell is solid,
tangible as dust -

do I always inhale
your stars and planets,

suns of you
softly settling within me?