Revelation

The world was already the world
and we were looking for ourselves.
Like something mispronounced
we kept repeating our names,
each syllable a slice of concrete
we tied to our feet for security.

In those days, there were stories,
an uncle ascending into cirrus,
an aunt who never surfaced again,
we dreamt of the long narrow road,
the precision of a snowflake falling,
the wrong turn that always got us there.

In the end we went out beyond the scrub,
to the free-to-air stations, thinking about
sophisticated things, branch stacking
and pork-barreling, the light in her smile
or the time in the middle of an interview
she reached out and touched his hand.

Salvation

I had drifted out far beyond
ill-reputed water metaphors
tipped off by a cunning editor.
Careful not to turn oceans to sand,
I considered cityscapes
as the inside of a river oyster.

I gave up amphetamines and yoga,
hunting around for an autobiography
I could live with. I ate hearty steaks
and wandered aimlessly willingly
until blind chance knocked at my door
yelling, ‘The Gold Coast saved me.’

I saw everywhere I’d gone wrong
running about in her sun-filled hazel eyes.
The waves were glass escalators rising
shy with the hum of contentment.
I counted the change in my pockets
as the horizons clouded over with promise.
I had just enough for the last cocktail.

The Saved

We were always mucking about
with the unmentionables,
trudging through the snow.
Winter closing around the heat
concocted by what our desires shared.

It wasn’t highbrow anymore
as we learnt to grind and crank
bodies, our saving grace, the fires
of hell these days reserved
for the faint of heart and feckless.

Grace

When we get back from here,
tell me how it was,
the stretches of land we crossed,
the friends we made.

Wake me up with a smile
that erases all the wrongs,
that speaks nothing of forgiveness,
that sings a few broken tunes,
half-remembered and off key.

Wait for me on the other side,
where we can dance a last rhumba
and tell each other secrets
we always knew.