Sitting in the Park of a Young Couple


Across the street
from my poems three
patrol cars con-
verge to a halt: Charging

over the park grass
you hoist your baby boy.

Monologues
melting into my lap go
lagging
begging: Who is emerging
from the bicycle shop
on foot with six policemen.

Why are you flipping out

ice cream lids – then arching
your tummy over taut
arms and legs. Over

pasty footlights
gleaming bumps baby
boy, now grinding
to a halt: Suddenly your

legs and arms
flop, both hands
beseeching, till
back bumps baby
boy jiggling
                   jiggling
                               jiggling
jiggling – May my

hands quietly
part your hands,
gently spread
my arms, your legs
to reach, reach
reaching
like a late-night Mummy
screeching
in silence
till baby boy plunges
giggling
giggling

giggling
all over
your tummy.

Originally published in Open Wide.

                   

Waterfall


Slipping
all the way up
through trees, we 
grasp at straw-
like branches lining
the path away from the steady 
crash recovering
into a steady pool

when the silence pinching a wiry 
man shoring up a stolid 
woman staring 
at nothing
points us back to the smooth
clamoring
the glaring 
machinery
called water 
works.

All the way back 
down
through the trees
we pull ourselves
together again.

But rock to rock
to a rock-solid 
ledge, settled 
in a hunch
on the outer edge,

we grope

until there is 
nothing
to say
or do, but 

listen
to the water

Originally published in the Southern Ocean Review.