Aubade
The thing is, we started out
with idle adventures
but we have compressed and compressed
these nights
a semi permanent tourist,
this will be another timely thing
before every memory
is packed away
I don’t know if regret is necessary
but I won’t regret these uncommon days
with you, and you will remember
everything lying down
A Lutheran family album
Riding in the middle, seated
on the undesirable bump
we arrived as familial
flotsam, greeted by
oily seals and angry crabs
it was a short stay, under
the mountain, spotted by
measles and monsters under
the bed, who hid
below my fretful feet
I fell off
my bike dare devilling
to keep up, losing more
than teeth, starting school
prettily and pony tailed
flying to heat
and taller trees, fortified
and swinging out over dry skies
in a land of rabid sharks
behind every door frame
a mother shouldn’t suffer
tribelessness and loneliness
dressed up in geisha
arrangements, for privileged
golf carts and entitled suits
no children needed to be
uplifted and transplanted to a
past, that was shrinking
from colonial cringe, ink wells
smaller than childhood desks
here we stretched out as far
as the ferns would curl, away
from common things, less
than strangers and more
than framed portraits
to the sightless unbeloved
we find ourselves here,
without motion you
entered every window
every refuge
some still occupation,
in that omission
was artless
disclosure
at the edge of all that
you stretched out the past
to dwell here
as an artefact
no more intention
than a convenient god
circling prayers
like a tourist
though darkness covers
a multitude of lights
hung from far away
tomorrow is coming
