Colleen Woods


rereading The Secret History

he never vacuumed so his bedsit was full of leaves
once he took so much acid he thought he was dying
his hands shook from too much booze the night before
my friend declared him beautiful
he said your friend will be more interesting when he’s older
weeks passed in clay and longing

this carnivorous nostalgia
if I told you how much it aches what would you say?
imagine diving for a moment
beneath polite enquires and phatic nibbling
I could say your beauty is terror
you could say I’m so sorry I never meant to scare you



atonement

desperation never wins
your gaunt strength
resilience as buzzword
rain hits our skin the garden
the tv says petrichor

objects come to us
a penguin plate a cushion
five minutes later
they’re suffused with memory

I worry about you
you walk around
like an open book

(an open wound in a soldier’s chest goes septic
he never returns to her)

so you’re a taxonomist after all
classifying this longing
that attaches itself to things
a photograph a poem

sipping port in the blue glow
still monitoring the waveform
that waits for forgiveness



tripwire

your billboard lego men
your halogen lit cafe
your thesaurus gathering dust
your quirky bio
your alleyway queen of heaven
your red jumper
your karaoke strobe lights
your hard booth longing
your graffiti geisha
your rent increase
your blue glass picasso
your twitching baudelaire city
your hostel illness
your jpeg sentimentality
your circadian askew garden
your postcard bridge in curve

sold by

so this is what we’re leaving that tree fern those ducks that lichen on the old fence the piece of carpet where our dog died you smooth in the shower that fight in the kitchen that awful chair we gave away you in tears on the rug home from japan home from brisbane home from arizona the serious cyclists across the road winter chasing the sun into the corner of the yard summer you swimming in the dark my mother on the phone tell him sharks feed at night your mother washing lettuce in the sink our friend drunk on the deck dogs everywhere everywhere under covers sliding under fences bending the blinds pissing in the bathroom jumping wagging you’re home! home from work home from uni home from hospital you washing my hair my shoulder wrapped in shopping bags the cockatoos the brush turkeys your surprise thirty-five the car covered in jacaranda flowers the new ducklings the big tv we never bought the fence they never replaced that time our friend swam for hours

Colleen Woods is a writer and gardener from NSW. Her work has appeared in Otoliths and Cordite Poetry Review.

 
 

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