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I listen to the rain and other people’s voicemails on that weird corner of the internet

I have cracks on my hands from not using gloves

when scrubbing the burnt oil off my lunch pan

and I’m distracted

 

because I want to write about living alone 

how I sometimes pretend that the affirmations in other people’s voicemails from friends and lovers are a good substitute

for the months it’s been since I’ve casually told someone I love them

 

but the dry skin is worse on my writing hand because it also holds the sponge

and this would all be better if I just wore the gloves I keep beside the sink

 

I saw a friend once go a whole dish cycle

without gloves

in water hotter than I can stand

and her skin stayed soft. I’m sure

that wherever she is

someone is leaving her a voicemail that says

I love you

 

 

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were I to wake,

blades root to blades

ten thousand points

like breaths released

 

there are rocks in my back

pressed against my spine. 

even after I quietly slip,

scrabbled stones spill letters home

of shoulders cut from grass

hips sewn of soft earth curves

 

were I to rise,

walk blue and shade apart

in prised protest

to breath and treaded ground

 

I would sing faint 

against drifting paths poured from drought

to meet the place where suns rest

and wax limbs lie laked as springs

 

It is night and

hushed blades shrug skin like song.

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I walk through the woods and feel like I am in Narnia

but a Narnia where parts of the forest are harvested for wood

but part of the forest is still intact and there are puddles to jump in after rain in the print of logger tyres 

and the sunlight peaks through the spring canopy 

and bounces glitter off the broken glass 

and I am transported to a video of lichen-covered trunks 

and new growth

and birds whistling in the wind

not from the freeway on my left

or the airport on my right

but the wind the wind the wind 

from the Narnia the Narnia the magical woodland world of Narnia

right in front of me

I walk back past Adidas men with dogs

and Nike women with prams

I buy some Turkish delight from under fluorescent light

put my silly little key into my pretty wooden door

and I’m home

 

 

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Time slips into a silky blouse and sways her hips

Time slips me a fully stamped loyalty card on my first visit

Time slips and calls me before I’ve left the room

She wants to see me again

 

Her body is warm and I want to drink from her

Her body is warmer than I know to be safe but

Still I take a sip and though my mouth is burned 

And the pleasure fades with every mouthful

I do not know regret; I only know her body