1. The Patterned Carpet

Yes, I caught you staring deeper,
A rugg’n old, swaying breaches and unloosed teathers,
An older god would crack you on the Krach Rock—
It’s right there, where the carpet is pinned under the bed frame.
Or was it when it was pinned?
I forgot under the Krach rock, and you’ll surely forget too, staring.

2. The Pine Forest / Deeper Woods

All lines must meet at a point. The brushstrokes on the conifer leaves, the tracks running through
the forest below us, your fingers overlapping my own. All rolled into one inside your eye. I watch
you, a spot of dust in the big overstretched underbelly of a bed. You, at the carpet’s frayed edge.

I don’t remember when, where our journey began. You stare at a point somewhere behind me,
and I wonder what would happen to us both if you moved even an inch backward.

3. Egg Fried Rice?

That’d put us at the heavy eyelids,
The piercing of the mellow and fumes of giving in.
They blow the cooking, fresh ham and eggs, up through the coniferous canopies.
That’s what wafts us along, to She Who Smiles a Little More,
Guides us up from tree base to summit, fills us up for the long day.
And it’ll be long my lovely, for She has tied us now to this greatest Thrum!

4. A Shared Meal / An Exchange of Warmth / In the hollow of a nook

As we near the roots, her features sharpen. She stirs a pot of rice. I shed a few heavy tears.

We settle inside her new house, the outside world shrunken to a small triangle. The fresh soil
smells like muscles loosening, arms opening into a wide sky. We sit cross-legged and pine needles
stain our jeans, happily. And then we see it, sticking in the upper chimneys, shouting at me to flee.

Sorry Mum, we’re late for class!

5. Tram Tracks

For class, for class, the shoes are on!
Leaves blown out and skidding skating electric on the tracks.
Up the mountain, no, to the largest room a-screeech at desks—
Carpet’s a carpet burn now!

Breath in
“Ahhhhhhh”
Good to be back, no? There’s your confidence, under the leg
And you can’t grab it because we’re rocking rocking
It’ll be a while my love, we’re on the 96!

6. Coffee Grounds / mugs tumbled in that way across the espresso machine

Somewhere around Rose St, I hear the rush and grind of fresh beans, and then a clean whistling.
Of course there’s been a laziness about me, metallic at my temples, ringing my eyelids. I’m yet to
have my morning coffee!

My favourite cafe´, an eye glinting behind smudged glass, slides into the space between two suited backs.

“Jerry! Let’s get out at this stop.”

But when I turn around, you seem to look right through me, your gaze flat and shining.

7. A Stranger’s Eyes

Oh it’s a swift shift from in behind the eyes,
The coffee aromas are out my eyes and ears as a new corpse flipped onto its stomach.
What a shame that would be for the shopfront!
A time-stripped washed-up being takes one step too far and embarrasses a friend, freezes
time then plops like a rubber band ‘round a forefinger back to the base of mum’s tree.
“No roses on the mountain path and no alighting from the right—it’s all had to go.”

8. The Music on the Wind

You’re circles ahead of me, falling, and I can’t quite catch up.
My head is yards in front of me, too loud, too sharp, the sun so bright it tickles my nostrils.
There’s a party bus nearby, but I can’t see the door handle through the clouds, or reach the
first step without legs giving way.
Its sounds leak cold through cracks in the walls. I can only imagine what kinds of creatures
live inside.
A rooster, a motorbike, a xylophone. A couple birds gone astray. A few pine trees.
You’re off your face by now.
I clench my teeth and the chimes pull me home.