Poetry

Samantha Wilson

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.