Recently in 2000 Category

Wind gusts smooth the field of long grasses
bend the tall thin blades to their green-silver underside;
Dip and ripple. Swish and splash.
The breeze blows grass into sea.

We dive headfirst into cool greenness, arms part
blades with each stroke, legs sweep past jade stalks
that curve in our wake. We pause for watery kisses,
tongues tasting salt and green sweetness.

I could swim here for hours with you, slice through
shining wind-waves as the air rushes above. But you
begin to feel the familiar pressure, the need for breath:
it draws you to the surface with brutal buoyancy.

You explode into air, suck lungfuls into empty chambers
as I wait suspended in familiar green below. I wrap fins around
your ankles, pull you down into the swell, know the short time
you can spend submerged, the necessity of breath.

Small bubbles leave your lips, travel toward
the surface. And I wish for a current to catch you,
endow you with the gift of gills,
draw the mammalhood from your blood.

Your mouth
leaves a slippery circle on my thigh:
a temporary brand of possession,
a shining ring of moisture
like the corona of condensation
left on the bar from our screwdrivers.

Your mouth
traverses my stomach's plain,
climbs to the peak of my breast.
You stab the orange paper umbrella
into my skin to announce your discovery,
your claim, your love?

A composer, he draws lines in my skin,
arranges music for my body. Stretches
a staff across taut tendons,
prepares the striations for sound.
His fingers palpate
wait, search for the places
to press precise notes into muscle:
plotting small circles between bones,
slurring sounds between tissues.

He writes a song in my skin,
an arrangement of notes that sinks in,
resonates deep into once-silent fibres,
releases sound from strained stillness.
He coaxes melody from the ivory
keys of ribs, from the dulcet hollowness
of scapula and hip. Presses neck frets
and strums rhythm across back,
plucks scalenes like harp strings

and brings music back to me

He always looks at her when she speaks
as if each word that drops from her lips
is a precious stone, watches her eyes
crinkle and spread open as glittering words
spill out between teeth. He wonders
if the skin on her cheek is as smooth
as her words, wonders
if it feels cool, pearled with wisdom.
As she speaks, there is nothing more he wants
than to bring his hand to the curve
of her jaw, to feel its polished surface move
as her lips deliver jewel after jewel;
he has always wanted to hold one in his hands,
to swallow one down his throat.

His skin was green. Not the green
of trees and wild grasses.
Pale greyish-green. Celadon.
The death makeup had glazed him
into pottery, smooth and shining,
glowing porcelain green.

I wanted to place my hands on his face
on the cool ceramic surface,
his wrinkles etched deep
into the bone and ash:
designs of age and adventure
swirled into the clay with steady hands.

Gorgeous and cool mint-coloured skin
varnished and hardened into death,
he had become his own beautiful urn.