Shore broken in
patterns
of tiny wing
& blinking lid;
we pull in close
as the rocks
will let us. Someone
says, head turning
under the white curve
of sail & aqua:
‘you look so different
with makeup – ’
and then I am
all eyes: glossy
throwbacks in every
dusk-dimmed
harbour window,
staring back.
Sky hot & near
even after
hours – the salt blown
on us & dried
gathers under nail,
a crust to suck
away in nervous
minutes, crowded
in & out of all
the bodies
on the esplanade,
glittering.
Wallflower
‘There’s nothing I can give you as beautiful as the flowers on the / wallpaper’ — Roy Fisher
Like your sometimes uncomfortable body
according to weather / season / position
you are neither pear nor apple nor egg
timer in curve. Just the ache of the fit,
of your heart hanging fruit-shaped
in your eye – imagined.
The rosebuds repeated
on yellow paper grow only
more beautiful with time, in ways you
will never. Speak softly –
lest your voice fill space like
your bones & skin & everything
that weighs you to the room.
See the floor’s dusk
threaded pattern: the dizzy mess
it makes of your gaze.
Jo Langdon’s first collection of poetry, Snowline (2012), was co-winner of the 2011 Whitmore Press Manuscript Prize. Her recent poems, short stories and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Cordite Poetry Review, Mascara Literary Review, Australian Book Review, Westerly and Overland. She has a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from Deakin University in Geelong, Victoria, where she currently teaches in Literary Studies.