drowsy skin

& rising.

we road circles

around the ring road

on our way back home.

our limbs

in holding pattern

the pads of our fingertips

serenade

the empty spaces

on a sheet of paper.

there is a certain majesty

when trains arrive early

and you can sit in them
quietly

contemplating the journey ahead.

echoes travel
through air vents

sounds sit like
pieces of raw meat
in the sun

flies slide down
the walls where
sweat gathers
in the small
of your back.

bored with
language
and other acts of denial

we made a pledge to honour
only the most
profound moments

like the surprise caused
when blood stops flowing
to a limb.

It’s like

Reading a book with half the words blacked out

It’s like

Remembering something that has never happened

It’s like

Travelling to the end of the earth

It’s like

Starting something from the beginning

It’s like

Forgiving yourself

our conversation turned
to a feedback loop

I collected the things
we almost said

and built a memorial
in the park near our house.

our neighbours brought objects

like old mobile phones
and sheets of transparent paper

to make a shrine

and I would come each day
with new words

as my offering.

i tried to draw a
memory map
of the first house
we ever lived in.

the hallway kept
looping back on itself
an eternal return
in my imaginary
floorplan.

***

you were in the kitchen
madly googling bloodlines

and other diaphanous things like

middle names,
insignias and
border-crossings.

i took your findings and
marked out our territory

a vanishing point between

then and there.

the seventeenth floor

thick air

& flickering

classrooms filled with clouds

the atmosphere outside

evaporating

she grew cacti
on the roof
of every house
she had ever owned.

the neighbourhood cats
would weave along
the corrugated iron
like guerrillas through a
mine-field.

in some ways,
it was a secret pledge
she had made with herself:
not to let anyone in.

her own juicy piece of armor
that thrived
like a bruised fruit
swelling

redfern st

glistening with fever

a clear autumn sky

and grant mc lennan.

***

i found 3 coins from 1988

-the year we met-

in an old handbag

i was about to throw away.

***

it reminded me

of the way you believe

that objects have secret lives

which move against each other

like songs.

you had a microphone
in your pocket
and a mouthful of glass

there were still
days and days
ahead of us

brightly lit streets and
sugar headaches

you whispered to me:
no one will
stop us now.

we were still at
version 1.0

by the time
you arrived
with munitions.

in the newspapers
teenagers were
atrophying

in the sky
the stars were
sinking.

veins that
rise over knuckles

a deaf syntax

digital cities built
on the spot.

***

you looked at me
the way an orphan might

& i would squeeze the sun from the sky
to thank you.

you wrote the city underfoot
with songlines
sixteen stories up

listening we stood still

as words formed around us

ancient maps of traffic and power stations.

you start to predict the weather
not for tomorrow,
but for centuries ahead

a walking tour
of streets that nobody treads

until somewhere in another suburb
I can hear you sleeping.

we waited there

until the sunlight disintergrated

*

you erected microphone stands

in every room in your house

*

we wanted to see

the code cracked

that night

you nursed your illness
like a baby

spending hours in the construction
of a complex algorithm
to plot the trajectory
of your own demise.

i placed flowers
in water

& paced the halls
of this institution
of desire.