glowering in the gnarled clutches of a malleetree she’s

bent, that cat

my mother tries to reason with her

only the dog ever responds to her logic

the dog and my father, four focused brown

eagerly uncomprehending eyes

the cat resists.

She veils herself behind a silt-heavy spiderweb not

one of us would broach

we discuss deserting her

my mother sobs, tired

hoping she’ll feel pity

(it’s late, it’s dark, the mosquitoes all gloat)

she feels contempt.

Fetch! they command me, the visiting child

the dog and I bound into ropes of corpse-flesh web

it clings like rolled rubber: we imagine many

armed spider hugs and fear

a beach-scrub Kali, slapping her hands across our eyes

our cat has eyes

like a goddess of destruction. She sits,

spite incarnate, in the backseat of the car

She and I, we dislike each other

intensely

all the way home

small joys: just maybe this could work out OK

the night is on

her side, rearranging reality

the dark, sharp with change, is alive

is ambitious: conspiring

against established order. What is

blue and grey by day, and solid as

a whale – whole suburbs, a freeway

a scenic, clear-eyed harbour – by night

disappears: I see nothing

but black, crisp and satin

Satan’s cape. Where once

cloud-bound buildings stood, a spray of

gilt teases

Spanish gold flung down by cut-throats

there is devil’s work at play

reckless spells cast by a witch

there is mischief tonight

great tracts of prime real estate, greys

varied as tweed, blotted out, blown

away – or sucked into a vacuum

lightly kissed by

Satan’s breath, chill, piercing

as a cat’s eye:

golden-green, disquieting embers

against sleek electric black

Janie is a sea monster

On the beach, they don’t know yet

serpent in the brine, green-eyed and unholy

She cuts breakers to size and devours

the shore with each wave. She slashes

bitter salt-whips across the bone-white flesh of the

sand. She smashes

fists of glass; they shatter they pierce callous shrapnel

assassin blades of foam

Janie threshes barbed, brutal coils

causing dangerous rips, gouging depth out of

shallow. The froth, a frenzy of jade

Sun-plated, chill as armour and rage

She’s a deep-sea dragon, malice embodied

She is vengeful

The wrath of the excluded, elemental

force. An agent of retribution

She eyes the beach-towels, beach-balls, umbrellas

all the people in all the lycra-bright colours

judgmental

Janie in the ocean

I’m a catherine wheel

(you may not have realised that)

a roman candle

(singe your eyebrows off)

all gold and pink intense spitting light

flailing the night-sky

fire

shock the darkness

(spin explode display)

I’m a white hot astral

torturing device

A girl with a smile

That buckles and bucks

Like a porn performer –

I like her

Here, pierced by sunlight

She’s laughing

We’re laughing we both

Have stars at our fingertips

Caught in our hair

Lascivious zircon-sly laugh-needle

Stars

his hands

watch his hands, then

his eyes – a wordless

question, a clue

in the distances: relativity

him to me

from here to … where?

a merging of neutrals, non-colours

of winter: soft duns, muted bone

sparrows on concrete, dirt-naked

trees against the sky

us against ourselves

shades of the dead: the dull, the defeated

all things blurred, a blinded sun

pale, white on grey

earth beneath leaves

brittle, fallen

crushed underfoot

Always these intersecting lines

a railway junction, a train

terminal: wires and bolts, a barrier parallel

to the sky. Below looking up

Always these greys, it’s always

raining. A crossroad leading to a street

that bends. Downwards: bitumen and pitch

black shadows, sharp

iron railings: a vertical grid

lights refracted, unbroken

housefronts

Always at an angle, cold slabs drained sinister

impassive, oppressive, too narrow too

tall perpendicular dull white and upright

there

Remembering reunions

Past, she sees him as a sequence

Of long, loping movements – half graceful

Then abrupt: a stutter

Of glances, fearful

Querying, tentatively tender

She knows him as a native

Bushland animal – touch-shy, muted

Tawny grey and soft

A possum

Dangling from a gum-tree

Securely attached and by night

Alert, its eyes

Its nightsky-padded paws

An untamed living question

Small:harmless:gentle

Marsupial

In darkness, in depth and in warmth

A kangaroo heart-pulse – an inch-long

Moist, ghostly pink

Blind embryo, striving

Clinging, swollen – her own

Bloodless like rose-quartz or a

Shaft of ice

As an animal startled

Scared by sudden light

Undergrowth creature

A scrubland dweller

A species protected

Defensive

And only rarely sighted

Approaching quietly

She hopes to see him soon

Genuinely I am genuinely

Not concerned

While Julie’s brother

Got vicious, and we had to put him down

How could he?

How he could do that I’ll never know

I always thought there were rules about these things

And the kids were real upset

(On a train

Women talk. Some don’t

Some sit

Staring tense by a window

Into carriage walls

Like railway station billboards

Conversation flits by

Disjointed)

Water off a duck’s back, love

Cheer up

(Random sense uneven

Rhythm volume fading

In and out)

You look like you just lost

Your best friend

You were a bad friend to me

(Insisting, she winces

Inflicting mental lashes)

And I loved you

(A voiceless conversation with a man who

Isn’t here)

You weren’t any kind of friend to me

At all

You wouldn’t have tried to help

If I were mangled in front of you

Probably not, anyway

And sometimes I was

I think

But frankly, m’dear

I don’t give a damn

I don’t

Care

I don’t

Care that much

Asked me not to laugh

(Smirks a schoolgirl, standing near)

But really

What could I say?

He was so

Embarrassed

And Katy said c’mon

(The train pulls aptly

To a half)

Let’s go home now

Giggling

I keep seeing images

of you I keep walking

when your face looms up

legs first

I see you

in shop-front windows across

the road in cars driving by arm

in arm with a woman with

a friend my friend I miss

you I keep seeing

you and every time it feels

like my centre has been blasted

away you’re away

fragments flying fraying

flesh

but there you are in the

traffic in the

distance far away far

away from me