1
            where does she stop

            if the brush of his hand

            draws up from her arm tiny hairs,

            lengthens them two, three impossible inches –

            finer than nylon, the tail of a comet

            lost on the weak naked eye –

            and then, when he's gone,

            they take more than an hour

            to subside?
 
            2
            stepping into a daemon

            a splinter

            of his image

            slips razor sharp

            through her mind's eye

            her stomach flips over

            her innards

            untether

            her back ripples

            becoming  heat haze

            she is almost   transparent

            a person

                                                  not of this world
 
            3
            under a table

            the touch of his leg

            and her leg

                                                      pressing back

            a sensation that widens

            intensifies

            spurts       past the knee

            in the locked

            jigsaw

            of what can

            and what can't

            a pinhole

            is scorched

            a hole    ringed with light

            lions

            through a hoop

            her dash at his heels

            dodging    round hay bales

            and vaulting   the fence

            without strain

            making a maze

            to escape

            the pursuers

            they entered a wood

            wind   died in their hair

            a mist   rose around them

            and began to erase

            solid trees
 
            4
            at the tips

            the half grown leaves

            quiver like flames

            all the twigs buffeted bend

            branches swing back and forth

            thrashing in half circles

            each independently of the other

            boughs creak

            stripped of old bark

            strain white

            almost wrenched from the trunk

            which stands

            in a gale

            like the chemical nature of love
 
            5
            only his hands

            touch

            so her eyes swivel inwards

            and she's tented by the hanging roots

            of Morton Bay figs

            fantastic candles drapery and cauls

            of limestone caverns

            clouds eerily lit like stormy

            photographic

            negatives

            not him

            she's lost sight of him

            but his hands

            do what sleep can't

            release the knots of her bonds

            tug at   pull free

            the endlessly flowing

            figured scarves

            of dream
 

            6
            his voice

            like soft rain

            makes every bulb

            hidden in her garden

            swell

            makes each tiny shoot

            pressed

            between the palms

            of uncountable seeds

            strive

            and begin to grow

            his voice

            rains down

            darkens the soil

            topping it up

            adding its weight

            as the airspaces fill

            tenor and bass

            beat over her

            overwhelm

            overflow

            a torrent of words

            has blocked up her throat

            to run from her pores

            and stream from her eyes

            washing her features

            away
 
            7
            lightning

            sees the world

            in its mirror

            ecstatic

            identification

            and he's Her

            she is Him

            himself

            his own project

            to perfectly

            streamline

            and purge

            electrified

            by the touch of a god

            Daphne burst into leaf

            after decades of tussle

            joints crooked

            at right angles

            she glares from the shape

            of a crab

                        apple

                              tree
 
            8
            absent-mindedly swigging

            from the drink bottle

            she'd used

            he gets the faint tang

            of the lime juice

            that filled

            her summer mouth

            her coldness

            flowing down his throat

            his lungs frozen

                                    by a grief

            suddenly crystallizing

            shatter-lines everywhere

            as if the last

                                    grains of a salt

            had been dropped

            into a beaker

            a clear solution

            of unacknowledged tears
 
            9
            the exile's shadow

                        waxes and wanes

            they say

            songbird's brains

            grow bigger in spring

            in summer

            love's inflammation

            shrinks back to zero

            our hero

            packed her house

            in a matchbox

            let memory's

            cats cradle collapse

            to a lose loop of string

            they say

            each mating season

            the survivors re-sing

            their signature tunes

            their abolished cadenzas

            one diary ended

            in a scatter of ash

            or blossoms

            a stranger

            constructed from paper

            dry petals unfolding

            like time-lapse

            in water

            the exile's city

                        has changed
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