Christina Conrad, New Zealand.

Acropolis a blood red sun hung over the harbour summer of my 60th year summer of bush fires my sister came from greece bearing a legend in the curve of her nose she entered my courtyard poison ivy grew in thick ropes on the walls my stone burial mound piled high with legs arms i could not tell her of the ghosts the dust i honored she spoke of the acropolis the pathenon she spoke of agony some of her teeth had fallen out a dentist had screwed bolts into her jawbone to hang new teeth two gold bracelets sang on her thin bronze arm she cried out i bring freshwater pearls for the woman we ran forward stumbling over stones and crosses the piss emptier when you broke your ankle           you lay in a high ceiling-ed room snakes of black hair devouring your white body black crutches crossed at the foot of your bed behind a lace curtain you kept a jar of piss too small to contain the mighty flow i suggested you try a tall blue glass vase filled with black roses i became the piss emptier gliding down the long ancestral hall past death masks madonnas bicycles delicately balancing the neck of the vase hopeing your friend the white sphinx would think it was full of black rose water rabbits tail (for stoneking) you ask what i do            when you are away i lie on the couch and imitate a girl i knew who sucked her thumb while she stroked her cheek with a white rabbits tail abortion i too was laid on a table between a whistling kettle and an aluminium frying pan she thrust a knitting needle inside me her florid bosom lolling heaving up ten pound notes the face of captain cook drowning in her cleft too much education (for julius, stoneking and doug poole) his head was too big he had had too much e d u c a t i o n the youngest son said people with big heads have a large amount of brain he said people with small heads are dumb my head was small i knew a man with a colossal head pointed as he spoke of nouns verbs adjectives he had had too much e d u c a t i o n people thought he was brilliant rolling melons in my family no one possessed large bosoms mine were small and hard later they grew from an ardent wish to possess melons they rolled on my mother's oak table shocking her into removing bread and butter demanding to know if i was pregnant at 48 i who had given birth to so many nurturing each child to the age of 7 sorrow and guilt accumulated blowing up wickedness until she was disproportionate thesaurus (for miro) when i was 9 months pregnant i got stuck in the lavatory with a read and black thesaurus after 5 hours of enforce study i was let out not long after this you were born at an early age your vocabulary was extensive mine was strangely applied in dark places my fear of being locked away grew amber cow (for paola) before you could walk you stood small and resolute in my lap milking my spurting tits into a preserving jar pouring it back & forth continuously misfiring until there was no milk left arrow in the heart (for julius) when i left new york i carried 12 yellow moons over the water 1 sheared beaver... coat memories of tribal life arrow in the heart 2 long black coffins bodies of my paintings laid inside 30 years a vegetarian devouring crumbed soya cutlets out of a cardboard box the youngest son says your sheared beaver... coat is valuable there is a ban on killing beavers don't throw it away like you do everything else when i left new york i carried 12 yellow moons over the water 1 sheared beaver... coat memories of a tribal life arrow in the heart 30 years a vegetarian in sydney fish jump out of water show teeth in neon waves All works copyright .

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