— Elizabeth Riddel
You walked up the stairs ahead of me

and I said ‘Your legs are beautiful!’

In the 1970s it was possible

to acclaim grace in a woman

and your path up that stairwell spanked

deftly as if we were all onstage

and theatre followed us with applause.

I applauded the energy of your passage

and the body’s precision.

There are a few images that hold on

to us — I think of Judith

entirely nude from the warm sea

at Marina di Alberese

invoking Venus and the ideal vase of fullness

in an Italy no doubt littered with lovers

and carcogenic clutter;

I think of the return of long hair in the 60s

and the seductive flick of a young girl’s head

on a bus going through Mosman.

No order in this, only a vividness

more legible than photographs.

You, ahead of me on those Melbourne stairs

in a Motel in Albert Park back in the 1970s

defined grace and decision

and clipped them into me.

Twenty years later, you reminded me of this,

laughing, with the dancing steps still in your eyes.