Written at Janet Jackson's Poetry Workshop

The TV starts to blur as my brain fizzes
with the bleak thoughts of a quiet Saturday night.
Tipped sideways on the couch with a downturn mouth,
I wish I’d gone out.
Over the soft sounds of Star Wars,
the Chinese New Year roars from my housemate’s room.
Deep in my personal gloom, I swallow the bitter taste
of acrimony. Because he’s really alright,
and he sat up all night with us on our New Year’s Eve.
I quickly shovel biscuits into my face
to stifle the growth of protests in my throat,
and reflect that Empire really is the best.

the woman / the man

The woman crossed one thigh over the other.
One red pump sat on the floor
while the other rested in the air.
Slowly, she slid her naked heel
out of the hard, sleek shoe
and slid it back in.

The man reached behind his head
and grabbed the fabric,
pulling off his jumper.
For one moment his shirt lifted too
and exposed
the soft skin beneath.

Home

After all the photos had been filed
and the passport carefully stowed away
and the last bag unpacked
and the last shirt washed and folded,
she stood in her bedroom and looked around.

On instinct, she picked up her keys
and turned to go home,
half a second before she remembered
that she was already there.

But sitting on the edge of her bed
with the sheets she'd picked out
and her books on the shelf
and her pictures on the wall,

she'd never felt more homesick in her life.

Published on AustralianReader.com

Tarot Lady

She chequered the cards on the fold-out table
and spread them wide before me.
Choose five, she said, watching close.
I wondered what I was choosing.

Eyes on my face, she told me my fate.
Shuffle, shuffle. New job, new home.
Travel. Puzzles. Shuffle. Shuffle.
I nodded along; nothing was wrong.

I see a new man is dealt in your hand.
A lover, a saint. A hospital stay.
A car crash, a hero, a Taurus, a Leo.
A puzzle. A puzzle. A shuffle. A shuffle.

Happy! She said. And I twitched my head.
You will be happy, she piously said,
no doubt a line for every person she read,
but still I wondered.

Before

Before we were together
I never realised
how many cars on the road
look just like yours.

Luxury

We climbed out of the 4WD
and I was thinking about my shoes
or my hair frizzing in the humid heat.
I don't remember the drive there.
I was eighteen.

The locals gathered shyly, hovering
in the shade of their dirt houses.
I felt awkward, morbid
with First World guilt.
The adults hung back,
speaking only to my father.
The men crushed each other's hands
in Ghanaian grips, smiling fraternally.
Their teeth flashed white,
the colour of money.

But the kids.
The kids clustered forwards,
with their dark dark skin,
and their milky pale palms
creeping cautiously into mine
to examine my white white fingers.

The smallest boy stood in front of me,
looked me square in the eye
and grinned.
Gaping, rotting gaps greeted me;
a dentist's nightmare.
Staring at the stalagmites
in the cavern of his mouth,
I wanted to cry. I wanted to hide.
But he was still standing there,
grinning.

So I reached down to pat his head -
those coarse, tightly-wound curls -
as if in gentle benediction.
Then: TAG! I yelled and sprinted away.
The word meant nothing to him;
he'd never seen American movies
with plump children playing chasey,
but he knew what it meant
when I giggled and ran away.

Together we ran around the huts,
scattering chickens,
and the other kids joined in our play.
We chased each other under those trees
where cynicism is a luxury
and the flesh of the cocoa bean pod
is the sweetest treat.

I was eighteen.

Published on AustralianReader.com

New Year's Day

Speeding out of the sunrise,
on the first day of the year.
Eyes burning with hope,
eyes burned a hole
in the side of the road.
There lay a dog.

On her side, straight-legged,
neatly placed there by someone
who felt the thud, the crumple.
Who looked into her fading eyes
and sped into the cold night.

I waited with the body
until a car pulled up beside.
The man stooped over her, stared,
ran a familiar hand through her fur
and lifted her inside.
Her legs stuck at right angles;
I turned my face away.
In the rear view, the man grew
as he approached our car.

She's scared of thunder,
he began, as if to explain,
And fireworks too. New Year's Eve...
I swear I locked the gate.
I swear I locked the gate.

Her body shivered in my mind.
The world was booming and smelt wrong
but the ones she loved were all asleep,
all out of reach,
so she ran, escaped, across the street.

Published in dotdotdash, Summer 2009.