don’t lean too far now the evening is squeezing out the light and our breath
bump-blue the skin, the pounded war drum for the shortfall inside of us
the house submits to being divided into banana boxes and possessive pronouns
the bookcase into left and right
yours the maps, the Russians and the complete Márquez
I get dictionaries in all languages, biographies of dictators
and yes, poetry, now of all times refusing to speak, you ask:
which bird was it that tears its own breast with its beak?
the pelican gets no further than the tip of my tongue
now I know that mourning starts by bumping your elbow
and radiates into your fingers
pre-emptive anaesthesia before they touch again
VII
something in the body will pulse for hours after the shot
until that too runs out, the memory of a heartbeat
which animal did we say we wanted to hit?
We were always hunting each other in ourselves
is that what we really became? salted and hung
our ration of ideals, an aerial photo of the site as it was
where we were going to finally forgive ourselves to each other, when?
even writing is dying out, my hand drags
left, pulling me backwards into years that are gone
into your armpit a foxhole with time to reflect, where I found the hollow
big enough for all my shortcomings, that’s when I did it
deliberately turning you and me into parts from a scale model kit
[from Nachtroer]
*
Bucharest
Some places are so small
they fit under a fingertip.
I try to point out where it was
but hardly know myself by now.
Still standing in the debris of forgetting
is my grandfather’s bookcase and the Sunday afternoon
we read the atlas together, his finger
on the capital of Romania.
‘A splendid collection of little whores they have there,’ he said
and I thought a whore must be something like the Eiffel Tower
and was offended he’d never brought one home
for me in miniature.
Later borders and grandfathers turned out to be relative
only that afternoon is written in embossed letters
on the pages of the atlas as the afternoon
I still saw him as a first-rate guide.
*
Specialist Poulterer
Women make broth of themselves in the bath
until their insides simmer out in the form of a child.
This is how we are born: without a shell,
without a reassurance that one day we will find
a mouth so like our own
that we will speak through it.
We too will end up splay-legged
in the tub with clucking breath
and the nervous tic of a wobbling head
on a groggy body
while the water runs away in circles,
a tiny swirling tornado
that won’t even make the weather report.
*
Bull’s Head
Since my birth, an enormous bull’s head has raged
in my mother’s belly. It storms through her abandoned body
gouging scars in the fallow mother, sometimes
she doesn’t quite know who I am, this is disconcerting
as she was once a perfect fit, fortunately I am
according to the astronomical constellation Cancer
reliable, creative and hedonistic. She clings to that,
proof of a god between heaven and her waters.
When we had baked chicory and ham, I got the cheese crust.
All of it. Because I wanted it.
For me love comes out of a saucepan
always two dollops more on a full plate
a second biscuit hidden in the custard.
That is a common form of maternal behaviour:
‘Stuffing the kid.’
Feeling the hollow I’d left in her, she wanted me full and round.
One morning I announced my budding breasts.
She was a mess for days on end.
Finally I got a bra
one with Hello Kitty on it.
Inside her belly the snorting bull’s head thumped.
A hollow only becomes a hole when nothing else fits it.
Slowly we fossilised into two separate creatures.
It’s hard to say
which of us became the insect
and which the amber.
*
Netezon Laundrette
My mother cries while doing the washing.
This is the perfect moment for mothers to cry
because a revolving washing-machine drum
generally makes a racket.
I do hear her sobs, but they are so soft
they could be background noise.
A washing machine licks the day’s wounds.
You can stuff in everything that doesn’t fit in your head.
Sheets that haven’t been slept on, for instance.
Or the tobacco smell in your cancer-patient grandfather’s coat.
Long programme, sixty degrees, cleansing ritual.
For a long time I thought it wasn’t fair that I had a mother who cried.
As if I had to go to school with a heavier bag
and singing Ring a Ring o’ Roses I always thought
the tissue must be for my mother.
I explained the phenomenon of ‘the crying mother’ from the suspicion
that there wasn’t enough water and that was why she stared into the machine
and thought long and hard about dead kittens, until
she could do the washing with her tears.
I grew up with salt rings in my clothes.
*
Hvannadalshnúkur
Fingertips, suction pads, whatever else don’t fall asleep now
if you don’t fall asleep now, we can talk now
we can talk here, above these sheets
about the pale hills across the water
the clumps of grass in which we sat
in which we did not yet sit together, summers
we experienced separately, the lightening of our hair
the lengthening of the days, here, above these sheets
whatever else don’t break now, the scorpions in my bookcase
are abroad tonight, it is safe now, the warmth
on the windows, the mist on your stories, it is almost
morning above these sheets a final hour, here
in my languid loins, stay, keep on talking now
in my body’s languid loins
about: abdominal cavities, the silly season, the distant country in my ears
the boughs of sturdy trees past the sounds of words
here, fever dreams, here, above these sheets gnarled hands
and bowls of thirst, white lilies for the living-room, the walls
forgotten blueprints, the innocence of earthworms
in a child’s mouth, we can talk here, above these sheets.
*
Groceries Soft Drinks Spirits & Tobacco
between the rope lights, the comfort of a gleaming buying power
a Pakistani in stock all night long
ferryman at the gate to one more hour
and when that hour’s gone the quay leaves the city behind
your body dissolves like an Alka-Seltzer
in the bruised beats pounding on your hips
at last you are almost
but a stranger calls out drenkeling
giving you your most fatal name
because the word makes no distinction
between falling overboard and having drowned
later still in the ice hole of your face
you see a howl behind your eyes
seismographed restlessness trembling through your body
from dark till dawn
passing in a dismal striptease
and again the light that makes you pale, the shipwreck
of the loins – as if there’s nowhere else
for us to break
Contents List
CHAMELEON
I The Red Cross on the Treasure Map
13 Bucharest
14 Sisjön
15 Örebro
16 Växjö
17 Japanese Pond
18 Hvannadalshnúkur
19 August
21 Sampling
22 Diagnosis
23 Fish Bowl
24 Gilles
25 Flamingo
26 The North Sea
27 Charlotte Cake
II Discovery Channel
31 People Who Watch Wildlife Films to Better Understand Themselves
