The first kiss I manage to catch
I nail it down on a corkboard
with pointy little tacks
like an exhibit
in a science show
The second I pour into an ice cube tray
stash it in the freezer
on top of the Vodka bottle
I place the third kiss
behind a thick glass frame,
hang it next to the Frida Kahlo's
I turn the fourth kiss
into a passport-size photo
slide it into the see-through spot
in the wallet
on top of
the husband wife children pets
lurking there
I don't know
what happened
to your other kisses
I stopped counting
YOUR KISSES
ReplyDelete(1979-80)
When you moved
a cat blew down Watkin Street
crumpled up like a newspaper.
At first you sent me short notes
simple illustrations of affection.
I kept those
then your kisses began
arriving in the mail.
I remember the first one.
In the lounge room
I was standing in a square
of sunlit carpet
when it came.
Your lips leapt out to kiss me
just like that.
You weren't there
just the unabashed lips.
It wasn't embarrassing,
it was your kiss.
After that
I stopped using the paper knife.
It seemed too dangerous
and I never knew what would
come in the mail anymore.
You played tricks with me.
A long serious cuddle came
in a weighty parcel
that looked like
a rejected manuscript.
That was a surprise.
Once I was lying in a hammock
in the backyard
wanting to be in a warmer place
with a better view
when a quick passionate kiss
came disguised as the phone bill.
I'd thought it was a reminder notice.
It just disappeared into the air
or up my nostril.
Eventually the postie caught on.
Just seeing him embarrassed me.
To avoid him
I'd have a bath
about that time of day
but then he started
delivering them to me
in the bathtub.
He liked to see the look on my face.
It was a bit of a giggle for him.
He'd been your postman too
when you'd lived here.
I recall
once he'd been curious
and just taken a peak.
Your teeth must have snapped
the warning marks onto his nose.
Naturally everyone was jealous of me.
The mailbox in the front yard
overflowed with affection.
Gradually your tokens
came to outnumber all the other
items of mail.
I had to take drugs
to stay up late at night
to finish my correspondence.
It was alright
being a local spectacle for a while
but when the reporters
started waiting for me
queueing at the garden gate
and even following the postie around
you went into hiding.
You couldn't stand the attention
and I couldn't blame you.
Eyes lowered in the morning
and lonely in my office cage
I'd invent disabilities for myself.
Then our banning orders came.
We flinched,
stuck in our suburbs
but we kept to them.
We made a secret rendezvous
– a pick-up point.
Your messenger would speed past the park
in a cute little Fiat,
a red Fiat convertible.
She'd toss the parcel over her shoulder
like a paper boy.
Anxiously I'd try to catch it
between my teeth.
Sometimes the parcel
bounced off my head
boing boing
Sated I’d sit in my office
or someone else's,
wimp around
wait for your telex.
Bushfires would follow me all the way home
fogging my windscreen.
In a dawn raid
police found our lips together.
The constable had a smirk
turned away,
the sergeant kept a serious look,
paused waiting for our lips to part
before making an arrest
politely.
There was a garden
and a garden keeper's house,
a hill that lovers tumble down.
The harbour was walled right round the bay.
In exile I kept a rude hut
thatched of brick and iron
in the city. From the bars of my cell
I could haul myself up to the light
just see the housetops and the spires
and birds haiku across a valley
on the first day of spring.
Finally your messenger came again,
your errand in her arm outstretched.
the note confused me
– an expanse of page
trees and embankments :
pictures of a gold rush.
I could pull rabbits out of my hat
but today I should not think of the past.
I should fix all the things in my room
that have stopped working.
And right now
listening to the dull rattle of my voice
and the wind whistling across the tops
of the milk bottles I'm carrying
I'm falling into a deep sleep,
a trance where life becomes one long anecdote
and when I come out of the shop
it's raining
raining kisses
and the road and the railtracks
and the buildings I
are all covered
with the lipstickless smudge marks
of your kisses
and everything is wilting with one sigh.
Kit, that is simply one stunner of a poem - absolutely adore it!
ReplyDeleteit's in my first book - The Naming of the Harbour and the Trees - Hale and Iremonger (1990) ... I'll get you a copy when our paths cross sometime
ReplyDeleteWould love to read the book- definitely when our paths cross!
DeleteLovely!
ReplyDeleteThanks Rob :)
DeleteRipper, yes that counting cessation says so much, but not necessarily bad of course!
ReplyDelete