Claustraphobia

When you paced back and forth in that small space of my office, and did push ups on the door frame, you gave it all away. There’s not enough space inside your head to take leisurely strolls, its all filled up with noise and a cast of thousands walking and humming in the dusk light. Or the time before dawn when the street lights fight the orange glow of the morning. A conflagration streaming from a stone church built by its members on a Polynesian island. With jungle and verdant green and yellow shouting up against the square corners of the church where only minutes before all souls leaked from songs about death and suffering and glory. To the highest.

Scar

Doyouknowyouhaveascarinthesameplaceasme?

DoyouknowIgotminefrommybrotheraccidentlyhittingmewithahollowpole.

Howdidyougetyours?

Hum

The timbre of your voice made my body hum

Thrum. Beat.

So I had to, yes

I had to reach down

Just to make sure

it was me. When

I did I could

hardly recognise

myself. I’d

run away with

myself.

Swollen with

pleasure not quite

my own.

Flexuosa 1.1

I arrive and spread my blanket square. Maybe the tree is a hundred years old, maybe more. The ground at th edges of the blanket is moist and I can see black swamp dirt beneath the tussocky grass and fine leaf litter. The smell of the swamp lingers still above the city’s breath.

I pull the hem of my cotton dress above my knees to feel the last warmth of sun on my skin. And I wait. Even through my closed lids I see the flickering shadows.

I hear crickets and the sound of trees in the wind.

I roll on my stomach its started turn in anxiety. Maybe you won’t come?

I hear a car and resist looking to see if its you, I hear the car slowing, stopping, I look. It’s not you.

I let my head fall onto my arms. It’s getting cool and my skin goosebumps. The damp earth rises.

Flexuosa 3

The tree in my brothers back

yard is the centrepiece

of his backyard. His kids

circle around and around it

on their bikes. When I sit

beneath it, I share the

view with an entire ecosystem

stink bugs, geckos, moths and

butterflies.

Flexuosa 2

If your body

was made up of phenomes

and if your desire was

expressed as a set of (constructivist)

words to create a constructivist

meaning, I would call you

Agonis Flexuosa

A shade tree, beautiful, delicate

used commonly as a street

tree. It casts sensual

flickering shade. With

a broad solid trunk, a

chainsaw’s nightmare.

Clean

I will wash you down

I will smooth your

skin and ease your muscles

I will kiss every part of you

And linger

And we will keep this space

Ours with our smells and

sounds and eyes and mouths

And hearts for the moment

Flexuosa

There’s a grove of Peppy trees nestled under the hill. Shadow creep quickly there. Before the hill casts its shadow just after the sun has peaked.

I am waiting near the slow crawling river. The couch grass prickles beneath the blanket and itches my bare thighs. I’ve lifted my dress above my knees to catch the last of the warmth from the sun.

When I arrive I think perhaps you are asleep. I pull some leaves from the wide tree beneath which you lay. The smell surprises me, sharp and tangy, peppermint. I crush them in my hand and kneel by you running my hand up the milky inside of your thigh, leaving the crushed leaves nestled where the skin of your legs meet.

You lift your head and turn and pull me down beside you. And I’m in your wold. All I want is to feel your skin and to be mine for now.