KEPT.

My hands are white, I do not plough

My lace is even and skilled

Absorbing my dreams as I loop and knot

My head is bowed, docile and focused

Pretty nape, 

I am patient and wealthy and fed

I do not want; my cup is full

No need to think or worry

My waist is small, whalebones tight

If I faint, it’s the expected constitution 

For my sex. Take small bird-breaths 

And do not hurry.

We have the means; I can stay here

All day like a cat by the hearth

With my women friends

Pulling and weaving and threading

Sharing stories familiar and edifying

I cannot see manacles.

Sometimes I dream

Of the sun on my body

Just dreams as I click and thread and pull 

Swapping anecdotes and recipes 

I look at my progress; an heirloom

A future treasure from nimble fingers.

Sometimes I dream of using my arms

Straining like I do when I lift my son high

Above my head.

Use my arms to dig and plant

Use my lungs to suck in sweet earthen air

My deep psoas to stabilise my hips.

Sometimes my hand shakes

My fancy-work is ruined

And I have to pull it all out, alas, all of it…again

Because I remembered a dream

In which I was a brumby

And it seemed so real that I cried uncontrollably.

But I am status, I am kept

I am bound and trussed

I am your symbol; I’ll not wander

A compliant king tide, a genie in a bottle

A godless, bleeding, stinking gash

And I, smilingly, hand the reigns to you.

Poem 3

Smoke and mirrors

Big time dinners

Lentils at the end

Of the month.

Take me somewhere

Dirty and make me

Social lubrication

Lugubrious customers

Take my tired legs

Home tonight.

I’ll take you out

Somewhere to make you

Lots of voices

Like champagne bubbles

Pop, pop….pop

My teeth are smiling dry.

They take us out

To get us dirty.

A fist full of

Plastic money

Hard to counterfeit

Modern currency

Tuck it in with your hairy finger

Pin it onto the bride.

Approaching the imminence.

What if the lie was not the only deficit?

What if it turned out to be me?

When did the possibilities fly out the window?

Replaced with longingness for a time before?

How many wonderful moments go unnoticed

Giving weight to unimportance

Things we will forget in time,

For moments we didn’t even experience.

Long live the breeze

The cold air at night

Cool grass under evening feet

Tender and water laden

From the backyard pool

Savour the cold wet run

In damp towel

Into the summer warmed house

And cold nippled changing

Into flannelette pyjamas.

Catching your face in the bedroom mirror

Flushed and young

Plump and fuelled with oestrogen

About to burst into full bloom

Beautiful beyond words

You contemplate yourself

And accept this magnificence

Without full knowledge

Of its momentary existence.

North winds blow

Hot air enters the oesophagus

Summers find a rhythm

Each one heralding a brand new chance.

What springs forth

Time after time

Wishing to Acknowledge

The passing as well

As the permanence.

Is this why our children look like us?

To help us know that we remain

That we are ongoing

As the summers roll and become a smell and

A shape and a hum

A season in which to hear the voices

Of children on the beach

Waves and squeals and laughter

Against the background white noise of

The universe.

Who will we meet on the beach the last time?

Buoyant with the permanent Summer

Will we know it is the last time and will

We look back over our shoulder

To see the ocean once again before we leave?

What drops of saline ignite us and make us move

With the moon

When oestrogen retreats and tells nature to loosen its grip

Where are we then?

Free agents spinning unanchored

What is this freedom that seeks a new beauty?

How do we negotiate being outside the boundaries?

There isn’t a set of laws to attend us

We are lawless, uncyclical, and radical

Scentless, wayward, hurtling

Should we spread our wings and

Choose to fly

We may find a bounty without a dimension.

Unchartered, unsafe

And debauched.

What shape is life

At this point?

I find myself elegantly

Poised and ready.

And Stretch.

Paradigms

Scaffolds

Frameworks

Contexts

Houses

Brackets

Trackers

Arms

Containment Fields

And Fences.

I can’t hold my neck up.

Without my rings

Bindings

Bandages

Bras

Trusses

Braces

Cases

Dressing down

Stopping up

Finger Dyking

Waiting staunch

Button up

To the neck

With

Soiled hands

From

Busy work

Hair growing

Springing and

Merging

Bursting forth

Headway

Forging

Airing

Venting

Arcing freely

Curling

Unfurling

Stretch to the

Outer limits

Of the edges

Of

Your body.

Keep Going

Into the

Echoes of

The Echoes.

Run

Run

Run.