Salt
-for Ahila-
A word like salt
needs no adjectives
to taste it.
Haunches of ham cure;
they hang saltily.
Thirst of the flat earth
is apocryphally,
a pillar of grief.
But I recall you
rolling sea salt between your
thumb and little finger
splendidly nude
your sight framing the cabbage trees and a
wall of rain, eating celery.
In Coyle Park
the wind caterwauls,
no place for
mud building on a playground
empty of children. Or the roundabout
whinging metal,
swings screaming.
Now drunks have departed the municipal toilets
it's sober as August.
Like a mirage
the mile high towers and girders of a city are
mired in mist;
the harbour bridge reaches
into a hill of cloud
and I shall make it the shape
of strong black print over this page.
Papa's Hand
-for Abhi-
I can smell the liquor and
old cigarette smoke
on his hand bigger than my head
that can cup me to sleep
or bash me.
Veins blue as violets
doubled-jointed fingers
filth settled under the nails
and knuckles that shine with fat rings.
Look how
life lines, weird as canals on the moon
bisect the dust bowl of his palm.
A finger summons me
and I must come.
Making Poetry
Now the sun's blood-soiled clothing
stains the hills
west of here
I can contemplate silence
blessed with exceptional gifts
configure stars
over our rough house
and a moon to swing
like a pearl earring.
Then our children would sleep.
I shall write into these words
a resonance
make poetry in the
accumulating dark.
The Book
Something in the book
other than silverfish,
the perfume of dried flowers
makes it heavy as memories.
Breaking the spine
reading the script
is like the salt tang of sea
in your nostrils,
heady, unforgettable.
For decades I've opened you
illicitly,
when voices of my elders
rioted in the room below
chanted sentences over
till they had the grain,
the warmth of a heavy wood
and fell surer than my years.
Symbols
A frost settles in my head.
The crows that bray on filthy snow
are quieted;
the sky has wrought other symbols
beyond me.
Nothing moves
though stealthily, without comment
tubers finger the earth. An inert life
ticks
furrowed in thought
and the land shall not shake
this necromancy
as dusk casts a handspan of
darkness.
Lullaby
-for Vis-
Mother and father sing to me:
a tall story about the moon
but I shall smile as their voices
nudge me, line by line
to sleep.
They whisper the future
but I'm fine just here
writing into the manuscript book of my dreams
such music
to make me young again.
