Morning tides

To know the morning tide
is to sit silently
and feel partial detachment
get every vitriolic pigment of your body
and let it fall against the floor.

Ten stubs

The heavy droop of limp fingers
with nothing much to say -
like the cruel heads of dead flowers
with half-wilted stems -
like a burnt out fluorescent sign
winding down above the cross.
Ten stubs - pallid and weary,
like something broken
like disease.

She really doubted that any other institution was as satisfying and worthwhile place to spend time as that of the public library.

Glass-walled and dripping in quotations. The scent of the library, of thickly bound knowledge, was the smell of everything she wanted to become.

Intimacy

Sydney has never been very deft
in its handling of the seasonal shifts

always too moist
with clumsy, slow-moving hands.

sticky
wet

a very bad transition.

This time though, the air smells different
the creeping December invites delicate things,

the grazing of legs
as we climb your back fence -

the thrill of pool chair fumblings
in the morning's damp dark -

the surrendered, half-open mouth
disabled on the very first plunge

sticky
wet

slow moving hands.