Like mildew on leather
I was musty with trust
That antecedent
Precursive verse –
Of the unknown:
We laughed, I was laughing
Weathering busty stances
A rocking horse
A silhouette
The shadows danced
As shadows do
Must settling
Trust too
Like angel dust
On every surface.
A construct of exchange is in my pocket
They say it burns a hole and so it seems
It scorches the landscape of my fingers
And as I deftly touch count the amount
Of loose change I have for an ‘avo’ on toast’
I come across a scene you couldn’t dream of.
And I realise that I revere this evil curse,
But even worse, that I’ve failed to see,
You cannot return wood to a tree.
A six pack of Canadians
On the side of the road
One can out and open
He gently lays it down
And straightens to walk
With an uneasy swagger
His tobacco red fingers
On tobacco grey beard
And on his face anger
I grudgingly approach
And our eyes meet
So I nod and he smiles
His faint strength shames
Me and my passive evasion.
A dull day afoot on wet gravel,
Tyres whisking shallow puddles,
I feel a teasing warmth,
Beyond thick cloud, and
The crisp of the air –
You are there.
You are there.
Your hand outstretched against my breast as we brake too fast:
My fist clenches just the way you hate it-
As I stare at the approaching distance.
‘Don’t do that’ you ask, so my grasp loosens.
I shift gaze and lean into you as best I can,
To tell you about gluons mediating forces between quarks.
You let me tell you that these gluons are inside you, inside me…
The fabric of the multiverses:
I tell you this will be the answer to everything,
Everything, I emphasise against your doubting,
Life, death, and every being.
I wonder how it explains love,
As you ‘Sydney’ park outside of Aldi,
And as we stack bags into the boot,
I brush my hand against your little finger,
And I still think you might hate me,
As I undertake to trust you soon.
But soon has now been decades coming,
And I keep trying agains the odds.
So now with this soft touch of your finger,
As it lingers still I reckon I feel
The exchange of a very strong force:
Love gluons between quarks,
Between you and me,
In an Aldi car park.
She backs a boat with the precision of a surgeon wielding a scalpel,
Slicing through skin that is warm, but impervious to the nervous system’s warning.
And she is oblivious to the effect that this has on my all too anaesthetised heart.
I drive under Sugar Bush road
Blasting songs of the unrequited
And passing by the Honey Pot
I flick through Spotify until
Doe Paoro sounds about right –
her pulse of rhythmic bass/
love lyrics tethering me to
this place that sounds
of waves and smells
of salt and dust
and tastes of long nights
and good mates
and feels hot like the
sun that strokes my face
through the window of this hire car.
