Can you see how this day dims?
Cracked along the cortex of
our ruddy homeland. So shallow and proud,
the ridgeline flaring with the wick of
summer. This year, all of the season’s
heat is crammed into a single week.
By now we’ve learned:
The best way to bring a forest back
to life is for us to just
exist elsewhere.
Can you imagine? The howling monkeys
and macaques opening up our house
like a purse, storing my hairbrush and broaches
in the trees like glistening, glad-faced leaves.
Picture us
first saviours, then villains, and now
a complicated algorithm.
We learned early. Track along
the flats where the sound is sandy and supple,
avoid the shine of whiskey and campfire.
Sometimes, with crates we found by the sea,
we collect up golfballs and pretend —
What freshly laid eggs
What split and briny treasure
nestled in these dunes. Here,
the old driving range is home
to an estuary of light,
lapping soft and blind and poxed.
Do you remember?
After the riverbeds cracked, bruising beneath
their own boulders, we realised
Every piece of matter is endless, salvaged
and spliced into grubby recognition.
What a relief to no longer ripen ourselves
within bright white sheets, crystal shined teeth.
Tonight, the damp torchlight hovers,
Sweet William pink, a foghorn
in the viny thicket of our
waiting.