Sam is Melbourne based, obtaining her now defunct degree -Bachelor of Creative Arts (hons.) – at the University of Melbourne a fast-receding number of years ago. She runs SNAFU Theatre with her childhood friend and playwright May Jasper, and is only now learning how to dress seasonally.
The Shape
in the end,
the house empty
of course i realised
that i had dreamt of you.
a forcibly empty house
me drying my dishwashed hands
and suddenly crying,
catching myself,
and i remember dreaming
of your small warm hand
in mine.
how i had dreamt you into
my street,
how we had walked together
in the hot afternoon’s
half-light,
you as silent and content,
as i thought you used to be.
in my kitchen,
patting water on my cheeks,
i saw the largeness of
my grief for you,
breathing, living on
without us,
and all the ways i
would continue to pay.
III
It is his endless
morning glare
that hits first,
not buried beneath sheets
but encrusted to a chair
or
pouring milk into a bowl
or
slowly pushing the plunger down.
He is not expecting you
and that is his consolation.
Scraping him off,
touching the edge of the banister
you could very well not be there,
very well not be grinding yourself
into him.
*
It is four in the morning
when he gets home,
familiar through the sightless presence,
as leaning against templed hallways
he sees you, just,
a fluttering glimpse in a dimming eye
as his hands fumble
dumbly for switches and
pocket change, and he
doesn’t quite know who he is any more
when sudden light surprises the
reflection crouching in the bathroom.
Stained, searching through
mirrored gazes for eyes and
ears and the four small moles
that one day disappeared.
His body deflated into
a husk.
The moon has beaten him tonight
standing by the window, and
whether he will finish in your bed
is a question you wont ask,
as lives past are discovered
in the floorboards
the house creaking
with unexpected scrutiny.
He does not know you are watching.
Mornings were made for nights like this
as sobs and breath
not your own
numb themselves into light.
*
He drinks four glasses of water
and remembers, finally, to close the fridge door.
In this half-light
he is a unicorn, almost,
pressing his body down in
bleak inspection of what is still there.
And only one thing he can say:
No body is this here
No body is this.
Murakami
You go into a room, because the bedside lamp
is on. You don’t have to turn it off,
but you want to. You trip over
a bedsheet, but the whole time your
eyes are fixed on the lamp.
This is how M makes you feel.
You are so fixed on this idea, that
instead of seeing Brando’s tux shirt in
a Godfather poster, you think he’s
holding a soft drink container.
It takes several re-glimpses to
shatter that image.