I
By the time you read the word ‘pebble’

you’re already thinking ‘water’

                              thinking ‘skin’

                                thinking ‘one is

                                  not enough’.

To collect something frees it

from the need to be useful—gilded

boats and eggplant robes, sugar

dandies and scented locks—
           but if only, you think

               if only and instead

the words had come from that croupier.

If he’d written

                       ‘a thesaurus is better

                       than a dictionary’

then you might take pebble to mean

not ‘moon’ but ‘coin’, not ‘a circle

without blemish’ but ‘darker

      when wet’.

Cast over the harbour

the paper swells

the body as surface

            and a single black swan

                      awaits your reply.
                    II
Not from hunger, so much as sympathy

       plucking leaves of watercress.

Not shimmering, but with satin plumes

       plucking leaves of watercress.

Not in silence, but without song

       plucking leaves of watercress.

Not with teeth, but the whole neck

       plucking leaves of watercress.

Not for fear of thorns, but retribution

       plucking leaves of watercress.

Not imaginary, but artful still

       plucking leaves of watercress.

Not finished, simply unfolding

       plucking leaves of watercress.