Selected poems
Bed Ready
I used to watch you move.
Even now I sneak a glance as
You come into the bedroom nude,
The hastened, towel-clutched run.
You sense my furtive look escape my book.
Can we still tease each other?
Then, turning side on, you pat your middle
As if trying on a new dress,
You briefly tut at the bad fit
Then get on with it.
I watch your tee-shirt fall
Like a Venetian blind lowered
behind a stranger’s window.
Not a stockbroker
The moon bobbed over Darling harbour
As they ate outside in the hot evening
Silky water slapped gently at the sea wall
By the married man and his just-a-date.
Firm-fleshed tropical fish arrived
Born by waiters who held the trays high,
He tried not to stare at her breasts
As she reached over to pour more wine.
He was keen to hear anything from her mouth,
His own ideas a drift in a sea of hope.
She told him about her new friends;
Some were young stockbrokers with Porsches,
They knew secret restaurants where
You had to knock at a little door with a hatch.
And they rose each day at six sharp to train
Before striding into glass towers,
And one of them, she said, had read Proust
And told her it was ‘great’, Only he (or she)
Pronounced it ‘Prowst’ like Faust
And all his envy turned to air.
Julian Wood is a poet living in Sydney. He is of mixed Irish and English descent. He has published in both the UK and Australia. Poetry can be found lurking anywhere but spotting it and bringing into the light often requires patience and a certain tenderness towards things and people.
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