Idling in a wedding gown,
white on white skin reflecting in its paleness
the filth of what has been
and what is to be.
Slips of fabric tease hard lines of shoulder,
a wispy, hyaline veil cascades in reverence
about honeyed curls
and through the curtain, his lashes flutter
a boyish acquiesce.

Fruit trees sprout on the petticoats of the billabong:
desert figs and passionfruit
and currants thick with black flesh
who peel themselves back
to tumble into his wide-open mouth.

Tulle and silk bunch around his knees
soaking in juices from the feast.
Eyelids lower over two blissed out
messy half-moons,
while drool or puke or juice
drivel down his chin
in uneven, marbled strings.

Hyacinths shiver in the breeze
Dark hair framed by creamy peony petals
Sulking against coal curls because the boy is too beautiful
His lips split, trembling in inaudible pleas

ice cube astronauts
in a melting mint galaxy of
gin and floral tonic
orbit the space I’ve carefully reserved
for forgetting

seated in forest grass, in a blue
mossy nest, hot to the touch
despite a lack of sun,
is a faceless statue
a simple granite rock in the breeze,
it’s carved grimace refusing to breathe

Your voice is a honey-lacquered harp string
Plucked with precision and ease and
your two hands turn the pages of my sheet music
my curling parchment cradling notes
whose ink you no longer read, boy,
You’ve whispered these songs for decades
it seems
And still I weep
when sugar meets tongue
and seam

Whatever was that sapling between us
growing steadily without sun?

Did it beg for the sea-washed crook of your arm?
To sit in our garden ‘til dawn?

I searched myself for you
in the promiscuous creek foam
in the still summer pond
and still,
smothered in daylight,
somehow nowhere

Your smile cleaved me in two
and moss soothes the cracks.
Ancient and unyielding and cool.