a year of beaded insects   of holy mountains ravines    and black-backed shoals unhinging   from gravity’s press   the circle complete then    kiss me and tell   is your heart still mine?

these word mysteries are circles connected   shaved heads and  filigree leaf    the act becoming image    taxi driver with a red dragon’s eye

our bodies remember   this heady wash of current and desire   pungent scent of  ghost money burning

I am writing a history of the present   of all possible directions   a tattoo to snare the sun   and spiral out to muscle’s edge

blind hours watching through   darkness the night sky   wildest of cities till morning    stars consumed by the mouth of light

at the dog end of christmas  the phone call heavy with pauses   thick slabs of monsoon    rain across the Tasman

these christmas lights   a library of multicoloured souls   strung windows reflecting heaven  and circular life beneath

we are a broad church   dogma to the left and right   your hip joining mine   a sleep that would not close over us

we balance between    stillness and movement    the smell of divinity    the hospital’s airless regiment

never as we expected   a lurching momentum that stalls in  mid-air    the day’s judgemental colours  combine to a single   black    result

out of intensive care   you catch yourself breathing   deeply   as if the air were a given    not a precious ore dug    deep from the bleeding earth

walking here the whitest streets   counting the votes of trees   branches dreaming of fire    of new moons and soft tidal winds

you chase after your breath    climbing the oxygen rope   hand over hand   these inadequate lungs    this gasping faith

if I walk on my hands    these boots will last    another week   but such escapes   are only ever    temporary

liquid streams from your eyes   as with a cyclist riding   into a stiff breeze   or a diver    surfacing from beneath the ice

I want to steal back speech   run naked after your amsterdam bicycle    journey deep into the jigsaw hills

the evening light casts doubt   on shape and density the deeds of love   what is retained in shadow   our inability to reveal more   than slowly aging bodies

in the service of doubt    my chest is ripped open   the mythic language   the dead houses    designate this affliction   wind engaging our seared eyelids

a heart’s beating-room    raises new stars    above the engine moon   the woman in shadow    reciting one hundred stanzas

so how to collect the bright astronomy    and number the clay science?    how more to open bones   and crack in union   voice to marrow?

this then    a description of the moment    the romance of ginger    the faint scent of almond blossom    the memory of a time when    all great feats seemed possible

I sleep   without nightmares   without dreams    my sleeves caught in the edges    of heaven and earth

tired of fighting we cling    to the wooden sides    of the cart rolling with the night     currents not daring to look    at each other lost    in the frozen tundra

we seek in the present    from every angle a mirror    the trick  to see through the surface     to cockabully silver      parading beauties of the pier

you filch grapes from a paperbag    furtive as a village thief     studying your fingernails     tracing the half-moon grooves of dirt

resting in my arms   a frail ghost observing   morning sirens across the city    automatic fire from the outskirts   not even close

I walk my anger through     the streets plant my fury stick    on the outskirts of town    there is noise but no    meaning lamplight shadows me    like a cowering dog

beneath a dying umbrella friday    evening down pour blood    pools around her head    life lifting and falling with    historian’s shoulders

we are story tellers both    limbs entwined bodies    sharing epic songs   the house-gods’ night-green    and winking number    the hours insist on

the light is changing    I must  collect my thoughts    yours the impulse to touch    to well-spring language    my own aspect a hidden    darker account

first day of summer the wind’s     salty bluster at South Head    a red striped lighthouse    the keeper a survivor himself    of such seas fierce and steepling