The antique shop sells
unlabeled VHS tapes.
One of them contains
a man teaching silence
to a room full of clocks.

despite evidence to the contrary

in her mouth
was a green door

ebb tide
a deep blue ocean
on the other side 

under the beach apple tree
the green-skinned saints
are all on meds

if he’s not the son of man,
who’s wearing one sneaker on the burning off-ramp

The door had given up on locks.
It wasn’t the kind of door most people pushed.
Greeted by steep stairs peeling.
Pigeonholed behind glass
he held our freedom in bejewelled hands.
Rubied beacons caught in bulb light
blinking an S.O.S. I chose to ignore
your softly spoken voice laced with danger.

It soon became apparent that there was no money in this:
The poster in the Sydney hostel read
Clean bricks in the Outback
Where Ned Kelly used to roam.
Accommodation & bus fair supplied.
I should have known better.

Trying to form
above the watery spechtre
of rebirth;
vanishing silver ink.
You slip in and out of focus,
words for every wing
beat.
Lost:
A shaken Magic Slate.

She walks like a man.

Her childhood etched into each fierce step.

Her voice has known prisoners.

Accusers and brow beaters.

Rest their heads.

On ample bosoms.

Fake assurance & peroxide curl with smoke.

But it’s her eyes

That sadly believe.

Fierceness is an ace worth holding.

(The plastic box of pins like fierce hail
their coloured heads between lips that would…)

The sun shone every day that summer you were framed in glass:
A sarong tied in hugs and marigold gloves hovering unnamed;
I was the moth to your flame.
Burning words on paper wings I could not read
your despair.
Nor was I meant to.
Pinned to you like a badge.

Those jackdaws laugh a lot from the chimney pots: what do they know?