Three Poems
First published in TEXT Journal, Vol 24 No 1, April 2020
On the Shores of Miraflores
with my belly full of stale
bread and overpriced rosa náutica
I cannot stomach love
as I watch young drunk locals hold
hands through an afternoon malaise
I would not write of love
while they walk their dogs, kiss
and butcher poetry beneath olive trees
I should not speak for love
as they skim stones over black waves
then plunge like cormorants into sea
I do not dive into love
with my feet bare, crushing
rotten crab bones on concrete
I could never walk with love
when condors circle clifftops, slice
through paraglider’s reeling screams
who could ever dream of love?
I pelt a pebble at the same ocean
that stole and swallowed you whole
I write only of you.
Shallow Bathers
Moffat Beach
We watch the giant pod
of local surfers paddle out
as I press pen to paper
They swim deep, drift through
shallow bathers like jellyfish
while I write of their blonde hair
The pod melts like icy poles
as we shield our eyes. I turn
their tan bodies into similes
They form a surfer’s circle, link
arms. When they splash sea high
I notice I am dry head to toe
They could carve each swell
with ease while I never learnt how
to stand on a board. I ask a nearby
local what they’re doing. He peers
at my frantic pen and notebook
mutilated by scribbles. He says
a girl took her life last week
I cap my pen, close pages, melt
into the sand at his feet.
Fleshing Out
She’s saved these frayed pieces
fragile and creased, that paddle
right back there in a skim read
We trace decades with a finger
pricked with a brain spike, slipped
inside his mouth like guilt
Mum and I pull him
from these scraps. I neglect
to ask her why she’s saved
them all this time. She couldn’t
have been holding onto these
clippings for me or my sister
Did she hoard them for herself?
Was she going to write about him
first? We dig our arms in down
to our elbows. Sea lice bite
at the webbing between our fingers
as we twist truth like a scaling knife
through gills. I hold back from asking
why she kept him embalmed here
beneath winter clothes and mothballs
It only matters that we flesh out
these words before they fade like scales
on a deep sea fish pulled up too fast.
