Kitchen

In the slow-warming kitchen of our winters we move.

Touching food with our hands, arranging it, bringing it to our mouths.

Pressing onto and off each other’s bodies.

Distracted from the food and provoked by the cold.

Hungry and then fed.

Lost in our dreams and then loved.

Washing spinach in the sink.

Rinsing and stacking plates.

Undercover

In today’s drama
you are the undercover poet
taking your Mother
out for coffee.
I serve you,
and although
I was in a poetry workshop you taught,
I don’t use the secret code,
so you move to your table
unawares.
I have seen you at seminars,
you seem to be constantly speaking
of faith
and/or your lack of it.

That’ll be $11 thanks.
You pass me a ten,
and say, as your hands fumble in your pockets;
I’m just looking for the one.




(for Bill Manhire)

From the zine The Lunchtime Runner volume 3

Love Poem

There is nothing timid or meandering about my love for you,
it does not head to the shop
for a bottle of milk and a newspaper
only to find itself in town,
browsing at umbrellas and suit jackets.
Although it does notice camellia trees,
the recently pruned climbing roses.

My love for you is not a walk in the park,
although we may, in love, walk in the park.
This love I have for you
is not off the cuff, or impromptu,
which is not to say that my love for you is rehearsal
and performance.

Nothing about it is calculated or expected,
it was not written in the sky
or the sandy fields by the beach,
if it was written anywhere,
it would be on the pathway
next to the pool,
between our bodies,
as we lie there, drying.
Dipping out fingers in the water
and leaving wet notes for each other.
Chlorine in our hair.
Skin baking on the concrete.
Almost warm enough to get back in.