14/8/00 — Monday: Ache
strange that it is, literally,
felt in the heart, this chill
that is the absence of you
slightly off-centre.
And that’s how I feel,
Off-kilter, unbalanced
The tears frozen in this
Cold shot lodged in my chest
25/8/00 — Tuesday: Locked out
The day is madness. Frantic night, exhausted,
Ends late, attempt to stumble home to find:
No keys. And tracing back through hazed
Emotional space to a memory: the
Door to the locker at work, open,
Keys in the lock, exposed. Anyone
Could wander in there, steal thousands
Worth of toys, tools. And I so unaware,
Dazed, in the unreal world where you were not,
Noticed nothing. Now, late, freezing cold,
Call security and confess all, call friends
And have spare keys placed in taxis with
Disbelieving drivers, co-ordinate the handover
From the warm embarrassment of the corner pub
And finally stumble in to accusing cats
And an empty, empty house.
16/8/00 — Wednesday: Not there
you are all my empty moments
wreaked from twisted space
you hover at my periphery
each breath is your name
useless and unheard, unspoken,
I spend all day making sure
I don’t accidentally
Call
Write
Message
e-mail
think of you too loudly
I check all the secret corners
On public transport
For your ghost
It has been three days.
Just that. Eternity.
17/8/00 — Wednesday night: ICQ
why is it that all great love stories
end in tragedy?
I wrote you love poems
Carried on the backs of wolves
My words fled to you
Down phone lines
Swift as starlings
I saw you for a moment
And at first you did not speak.
When you did, it was of mundanity.
Always, before, our words
Were precious gems.
You depart swiftly
And I am left
Wracked with gulping
Wordlessness
Drowned in my salted breath
22/8/00 — Thursday: deadline
She is obsessed with facile images
And we debate for hours
The delicacies of cropping
Tight and you lose definition
Too far out and there’s too much going on —
Are they friends or lovers? The question
Recurs, back and forth —
A man, a woman — are they friends?
Her arm on his shoulder. Are they lovers?
Are we? A woman, a man. It’s too easy
For any touch to be misinterpreted.
They’re sitting too close, the way
She looks into his eyes. Are they lovers?
If we’d chosen two men, none of these
Flirting glances would have been
Acceptable in the slightest
And I sometimes suspect that if
Two women were kissing intensely
On our covers it would still be said
They were just straight girls
Horsing around. But these two —
Man, woman — are a delicate question.
I try to distance myself from you and I —
Friends? Lovers? — and in the end, we choose
The image of unsmiling space.
22/8/00|25/8/00 — Friday: Loss
I have lost my identity
I left it on a tram along with
Credit cards, money and a ten pass to the baths.
How will I pass through airports,
Video hirings or other streetside interrogations?
My identity is replaceable. I can be
Reconstructed from first principles.
In fact, it is an opportunity for
Recreation. Who will I be without you?
This “I” was an a priori happenstance,
Built from a random ability to drive
And a commitment to union action,
Fluffy sheets and healthcare.
It has been a week of haphazard catastrophe.
I piece myself together: I have no
Card declaring my allegiances.
4/9/00 — Friday night: Sydney Night Interior
I just made the plane,
Frantic moments, plain insanity,
Cell phone calls from tram seats
Arranging tickets and taxis.
Now, I am lying in the arms of another lover,
In another city, in a strange room.
Above us, a woman is crying
Loudly. We lie here in silence, he and I.
He is thinking of her
And I am thinking of you.
He holds me tighter into
The uncomfortable silence of her sobs.
4/9/00 — Saturday: Eggshells
We scuttle around the edges
Of each others’ tender places
No one speaks louder than
The rustling of leaves
Strewn across this garden in
the dying moments of winter.
4/9/00 — Sunday: Late night phone call
When I return to the cold city,
I phone you. When will you speak to me?
Months? Weeks? You say:
It’s only been a week.
A week isn’t that long!