Button
tossed on the doona a redengine with blue trim,a lemon duck, an A & anM, a black trouserfastener, myriad shirtbuttons in several shadesof white, a hook & eye,a grey button for a cardiganthat long ago lined
the cat's basket. a solidconfetti of odd shapeand size, picked over like lentils,picked over again. suddenly
the best thing that's happenedall day, in the mixa lilac disc diameternine millimetres with twoholes for the thread not four,to match the five alreadyon the purple shirt, to sitbetween the second and the fourth,just over the breasts.
there to survive when the fabricand the flesh fall away,sewn into soil withthe slow decay of bone.
Receiving a past
I wind a music box with my heart wrapped round the key, to shield the skin of my palm. It would burn on a sentence spoken, I cannot respond. The mirror is face to the soil. The frame is filigree. On its reverse ants outline a world. Under glass the roses have crimson centres, and leaves are harlequin, emerald-lime. A peacock struts on the back of my brush. One hundred strokes are all that's left of Nanna. Her need for the impossible falls to yesterday's grace. It was all right to split an orange oozing sweet acid. Like a love-lorn cow I lowed, a deep-throated yes. Assent was a texture stitched on recycled card. I dotted my 'i's with lemon pips embroidered into language like tears on the bank of a creek — each after rain clings to a blade. From the glistening trees the chorus of what was said became me, before I registered the sacrifice. Now from the yes, a small face looks up mute. My eyes are still selfish and my ears hunt a magpie's repertoire. She spills it on the blue page.
I lick my thumb. I turn the air.
Sheet music
If there were sheets that night scoredwith the labour of cotton farmersand their pickers,and certain workers spinning threadand the giant looms,there was also the comfort of cloth,the several skins of the coversand the skin of night,and a tattoodeep beneath skinthat juddered in the intestinewith the question tossed between us
as if you existedand might have asked somethingof me. Andif you had smelled of anything at all,it might have been clean sheets, crisp air,autumn, candles, chocolate —or otherwise the tang of ozone,heated metal, war andblood, the pages of Wilfred Owen's doomedyouth, who wrestled