Stone & Thyme

Your birth is a Rorschach 

butterflies and blood

a string tight around the umbilicus

double knotted, a bow, slack-winged

to promise and make sure

you never float away


Childhood a sharp sprig

this for time, this for prevarication

the soft sound of the turn of cards

in the cage, a sharp stitched inhalation

rot and eucalypt

climbing fences, caught

in the odd barbs of freedom

wet-faced and limping home

still lost

now I am  all piercéd through

in another too bright morning 

kicking down the sun


Wondering, what happens to all those deathbeds

shook by throes 

of regrets and reconciliations

the final jagged fabric of your breath

gone in the wash


Carefully dismantled by the now bereft

sheets shaken out, spars and frets

boats and guitars

to make of blunt horizons

a sunset mausoleum


The old women are the colour of the stones

hands gone rough, skin like sand

still  with stained glass eyes, the light

too brightly glistening

I am still here

they have gone and come back

in the curved shape of forever