Femme Sauvage
Wild winds
and wild women
the woods.
Whispering
words of worship
to women of myth
and mothers
of men.
Wild women
with bare toes and loose hair
whose voices rise
like tribes
of hunters.
Wild women
with heavy breasts
holding hands,
in chains of skin,
in chains of liberty and lustiness.
Lusty wild women
in the night time.
women who move
and firelight.
Wild women
whose dishes are washed,
whose floor is mopped,
whose home hearth is burning bright
elsewhere
unattended.
Wild women
Who walked in slacks,
who left the Subaru on the street corner
and ran into the
woods.
Dissolution
Dreams disolve
Like plastic in acid, severing
The shimmering myth of sleep.
A chain of synapsis
Cling to tapestries of flight.
Illusions of memory
Recur,
Recur,
Recur
And dreams disolve.
Loss
I lost a baby.
I’m not sure how,
I didn’t even blink.
I’ve looked in the laundry,
the cupboard
and under the sofa.
My husband was at work.
My sister has hers.
It must have been me.
People looked and
their eyes said,
‘silly girl, how careless’.
Was I careless?
I’m still searching.
Getting angrier.
Maybe it’ll turn up.
Girl Interrupted
If she were a poet
She would weart flowing dresses
And live in a cottage
Drinking red wine.
She’d make lively conversation
With interlectual people
And then sit at night
By an open window.
If she were a musician
She’d have a tattoo
And travel to seedy motels
Where she would not sleep.
She’d love them and leave them
Wanting more
To drive through the night.
If she were an artist
She’d live in a shed
And go to gallery openings
With paint stained fingers.
She’d mold her fears
Into clay or resin
And not brush her hair
Until the sun went down.
She is a mother
So she wears jeans
And sits on the sofa
Listening for movement.
In the darkness,
She waits for sleep
And dreams of lives
Uninterrupted .
Lambing
From the first time the
warm air brushes the nape,
lovers emerge
like lambs.
In matching hats,
her hand guides him as
he rests his weight on the handrail.
He smiles as she
touches his sholder
while the children run ahead.
They dare
their fingers to brush
as they cross the street.
His nose ring
jiggles, like sequins
dancing, as he giggles at him.
They read the news,
turning the pages while
their calves nudge under the table.
The warm air lifts,
the tarmac softens and
the spray paint beneath the wharf
is indelible.
