in transit quarantine
28/3/20
three quarters of the way up the hill, by a wiry brow
of foliage and a stump;
on the grass, spongy and cohesive,
and all the way up the street with the squat cottages,
long gardens and looping magnolia
ghosts are
curling in the water; printing and reprinting in the way the
leaf dents the ground
captured in the split end of difference between the horizon this month and the last
spirits gather, juvenile at dusk
flicking butts at the ground.
and they rebound.
today the air is heavy with hovering flies and chargrill.
the concrete steps are cool, laces dangle towards the gutter;
thighs spread and swelter.
all the other summers
hang thick;
i feel them sprawl like stagnant pictures as
i tread on new grass in old spaces,
walk the figure-of-eight street again, arms around the shoulders of another pair.
today the air is nearly viscous with the spirit of the years
when we had grass stains on our knee caps
and sneezed in the daisies behind the writer’s house,
lying flat and itchy
in interludes to word-filled hours.
kissing people but not meaning it; arranging discount flowers in green bottles.
i watch the wind conduct its orchestra of branches,
collaborating with the sparrow
and the neighbour’s bumps and shouts.
something real suggests itself; a thirst gnawing through
and pouring down
my throat, sweet and painful to the heart of me. finality reverberates.
i shift and fidget in the moment,
wincing in the present: all it carries and all it threatens
to leave behind. why even under this sweet and harmonious evening, is it easier
to conceptualise dread’s smooth edges than perfection?
why does pure joy feel like farce and fallacy;
or pretend to be yesterday?
it comes from now not elsewhere; i know it comes
when we listen, and not when we plan.
so tomorrow i will sit instead of grab.
i will trace the bluing tributaries from my elbows to my palms, choiceless and resplendent.
eyes on the embroidered backs of lids,
i will drink totality for breakfast
and know that no moment lived can go to waste
because now is - not will be - a universe.