kaffeeklatsch

sewingcircle mornings

the click of needles and tongues




threads caught and kept

and made to darn and mend




purse-stitch closures lipsealed

over rents before they grow



the tut of dear good friends

chairs drawn so close they touch

diver

surfacing through
greenswell, hefting
his netted finds aboard

the deck tilts.
nothing ever
washes away.

somewhere
in all these shells must be
the nacre-smothered grain
for which he bursts
his lungs.


later, beached,
the tops of his toes
skinned by his rubber fishfins,
sand crusts with blood and wounds
are roughly mortared closed.

tomorrow he will open them afresh.


later still
while casting for bait,
he is stabbed by memory

of a time when bright steel was enough.

february poem -

ainagainr
inagainra
nagainrai
againrain
gainraina
ainrainag
inrainaga
nrainagai
rainagain



rain again



rain again



rain again

untitled.

and then it broke
over him like a wave

and he was flung
down
the face of it

and he kicked

how he kicked

and the white
the white
white

water

and he would have drowned but for swimming

and he would have swum but for drowning

and he laughed in the white
water he laughed

and every drop a bright

pearl

every drop

a pearl

untitled

in the time between sleeping and waking, they talk. she sends him many small messages. the text is white on the small black screen. she sends photographs. he is online. they are connected. they talk. their voices are warm as breath. they touch with their candle eyes. they see with their bloodshot hands.


he wonders if this time is more real than the time of being awake. it is her voice in his ear. it is the heat where their skin joins. it is each hair of her head separate and distinct, its own small scent growing into his awareness. if he doesn't try, he can slip into this time and linger there. it is a time without ticks or taps. it is a time without befores or afters. he wonders if she will let him.

he tries not to try.


when he sleeps, he dreams of them. he dreams knowing that he is dreaming. in his dreams he is awake. sometimes he dreams he watches her sleep and wonders what she dreams. in his dreams he asks her sleeping form many questions and he tells her many secrets. he smiles and reaches out a hand to touch her. in his hands she is a fish, silver and quick like light.


he remembers that in the old words, quick means alive. the quick and the dead. cut to the quick. he feels a quickening. he is breathing deep, and quick.


when he is awake he dreams of the time between sleeping and waking. he thinks of sleeping and dreaming.


he is stretched. he is transparent with the stretching. he is running. he is running and not stopping. he knows where he is running. he knows why he runs. he knows who he is... he is gulping hot desert breaths. he is astonished by the length of days.


he does not exhale.