The brick factory's there alright,
looming with obese abandon,
seeping dead zephyrs that
catch in my throat.
On the lines high-chested finches,
buffed with brick dust, chitter.
The old teeth of buildings lag
blunt and brown down
the dry dusty street.
The sun lingers in shadows,
languishing under the bulk of
that great bessa built of bricks.
A galah, dark, cornered by grey cages
still tries vainly to speak, stretches
his tongue to sqwark a lipless FREE
to our cooing.
It were luv, it were, sure as there's cherries in summer.
And sure as cherries get ate, so I got ate from the inside out,
took bloody months, but you finally polished off the crumbs,
saved my vitals so you could scoff them on my birthday, bitch
(for the second year in a row).
Next season I'll be a dragonfly, and you won't see me for
the long tongues of hungry toads in mudholes, and I'll be
too busy piloting my fighter-plane brain, dodging bullets
disguised as Christmas cards, to even think your name
(this poem does not end happily).
Last night I sat just beyond the touch of the
yellow light spilt by your kitchen window.
It was cool and moony. A soft breeze
carried sounds of you thrashing saucepans
which mixed with the rustle of my skirt
and sang a pact against the ugly silence
that had fallen, sticky and stinking,
between you and your absent woman.
It was a week to the day since you saw
your grandfather's last living breath.
I thought her absence cruel and heavy,
pondered your drawn face as your
angry hands cut vegetables in that dim
dull room while I, barefoot in the dark,
racked my brain for any imaginable excuse
to tap my knuckles on your kitchen door,
to swim into your buttery light and breathing,
and wash your feet with whispered love.
I wasn't cold, but I am alone. No excuse
could hide plain fact. I want you for my own.
Averil Bones lives in Sydney, Australia, holds a BA Communication (Print Journalism) and currently works in the publishing industry. Her work has appeared in many journals and zines including The Blue Fifth Review, Aileron, Comrades, Red Coral, Poetry Life & Times, Poetry News, Ascent Magazine, Poets Cut, PoetryMagazine.com, Pale Forest, FZQ, Outsider Ink, Grassroots Poetry, Dalipyati, San Francisco Salvo, Dead Mule and This Hard Wind. She is a regular contributor to Poetry Downunder and is featured as an Alpha Poet on The Poet's Porch.