I called for you, spoke your name
thought you might want to play
a summer fling, a cheeky thing
that had crossed me, inappropriately
some years ago when I came
with another, and in passing
you’d thrown a polite
“G’day. Are you enjoying your stay?”
your voice pushing me down
to a place of imagination, or
perhaps premonition –
the witchy kind, inherent
a certain knowing, as clear as a bell
we would find each other,
some other time, in some other life
when I had course-corrected
my way back to this place
your kisses on my face, my skin
I take you all in, and cry out to a god
I don’t believe in.
Damp. Mud. Leaves.
She crawls on her belly
a gap under creaking stair
hides herself there
and still, like a stone
shallow, hard to take air
something damaged in there
she swallows, blood
a little too much
and listening –
black pupils, wide eyes
lenses open to receive the light
unaware; cobwebs in hair
like a virgin’s white veil
she rests, numb, cold and unfeeling
broken body, eyes closed
until rumbling motor on approach
signals his return –
where he will soon discover
the empty room, the mattress bare
no – no play thing there
he will search for her into the night
with loaded rifle and flashlight
but unmoving, she will remain
safe to let herself forget
this perfect secret-hidey space
here will be her resting place
— until one afternoon,
a week from today
as he waves the flies from his face
and lifts a panel from its place
finds her body in fresh decay.
Born again, an ancient wisdom
locked in my bones
pulls me; a fated trajectory
and it is you that I know
that I have known
a forgotten history, familiar in feeling
and by the eternal scale
measuring feather-fluttering heart
against my constitution
that we again be worthy
to make, to partake
in the pleasures of each other
before our souls depart our broken cages.