we couldn’t put
it back together
with time
or even with
words
everything you thought
at that moment
was somehow
interrupted
like data flows
or the way frames of film
fit together to make movement.
i think they call it
‘the persistence of vision’,
each moment
blurring
into the last.
we wrote with pencil
on sound
and i said things
aloud
that i wouldn’t even think
the quickest way to remember
is to try and forget
you had something
stuck in your front teeth –
to me this was a sign
i used a typewriter ribbon
as a blindfold
and pointed myself to the sun.
so much of
going away
is coming back
again.
we spent hours
tidying our house
until it no longer
felt like home.
we washed away hallways
and let the paint
fall from walls where we
found ourselves,
camped.
your voice &
my eyes open
waiting for the silence to stop.
i left the city early
and watched them roll the clocks back
to the start.
trains collapsed into houses
with the sound of sign language
& you, barely awake.
it all started
when i forgot your name.
we survived a room full of people
by ignoring each other
& waited so long
that it began to feel like action,
began to feel like memories eroding.
a simple virus,
leaving only an outline.
a hypodermic needle.
a man sleeping under a tree.
a tag cloud of memories
distributed in the mail.
there were weather patterns,
anatomical diagrams & other
continuations of science.
i held my breath & thought
of all the things
which are not quite photographs,
but always framed.
i read the first page
of fifteen different books
& then walked around the block
hoping to run into you.
i had so much
to talk about,
but nothing in particular
on my mind
a woman with a tribal tattoo
and a fedora hat
rode her bike past me
in the street
& all at once i understood
the meaning
of something you said to me
long ago:
only you
can bring
the stars down to earth.
a landscape painting
in motion
rain falls from a cloudless sky
every word you spoke;
you said twice.
five roadside rest stops
in five hours
the heat like turpentine
bleeding colour across the landscape
we sit and watch the
feeding frenzy
a digital camera melting
in my hand.
he said it was like his
fingers were filled with
electricity
he put his hand on my skin
& the street emptied.
there were words written
somewhere
but all we could see was light.
the muscles down my spine
were twitching slightly
right where you drew
a line of sound.
things that pull apart
pulling together again
the way music
moves moments together
an endless tracking shot
of the city in which you were born
you used a camera
to x-ray your mind
things that pull together
pulling apart again
i wanted this place to be a repository
for all the moments that
would not quite stack up in my mind-
the kind of memories that stand together
like newly introduced strangers
shuffling with softly pocketed hands.
***
the things we saw
forming
on our flesh that morning
***
traveling out
of a town we did not yet comprehend
green belt horizons
flying past like spokes on a bike:
we knew then
that the worst was yet to come.
something that comes
together
like colour
your words forming & un-forming
in the air: subtitles
on an empty screen.
a new economy exists
of images that will never
match with words.
that whole day
we had spent
praying for rain.
we were not interested
in regular rain,
we wanted the kind of rain
that evaporates
even as it is forming,
the kind of rain
that never reaches
the earth’s surface,
but dissolves
the way stars do
when they die.
it’s a curious thing
watching your body
set fire to itself.
for one whole year
i underwent
an arson
from within.
all those intricate systems
of renewal
were now operating
in reverse.
landscapes
made out of skin
turning to cinder.
-you can imagine my surprise-
i guess i never
really thought
all those years of
self-destruction
would actually
work.
and all at once
a river
where there was
no river
before.
on the bus
from bondi
an old lady
fingers
her curls.
if my memory is right
we are in my kitchen,
although it is warmer, brighter
than my kitchen normally is.
you have wild hair
& i unpick
the creases
where your skin
comes together
it feels like
pale fabric
on a rusty transistor
they are talking about
the tides.