at first
I carried them
back to her
that pile
of old white bones
I found
in the pocket
of a river’s meander
high in a dry
floodwater bend
a shoal of
ten thousand river stones
the marbling shade
of elder casuarinas
knots
of roots
& smaller stones
eddies of earth
patched by
grasshaving stumbled
upon
a farmer’s Boeotian
slaughterhouse
set back
from the river’s
cascade
quarrel & din
a silent
place for a bullet
the infirm
& broken
cows
led down
from
the paddock above
shot then &
their
scattered white bones
sculpted
by the high
sun
moving through
bleached
horns & the dark eyes
of their
forebearsI had only
my own eyes
to see
small zones
here & there
old bones
where bodies
drop
over time
&
then
down a bit
a rust brown
hide
taut over hollow ribs
stuck out
jaw openforgive them
sacred cows
white milk
blood
& hard-baked
shit
the hide arched
over bone
into
a fly-blown
templewho
would forgive me
though
when I
looked around
wandered yonder
& found
a remote pile
of bones
away
by a tangled pomegranate
scattered
dry
old white bones
the
skull first
resting
forward of the rest
two
clean bullet holes
resonate
with a
deathly cool
refrain
in the solid
resting
brow
& in
the skull’s wake
a wreck
of vertebrae & ribs
their empty
cacophonywho
would forgive me
if I
took them
with me
all the way home
& out into
the world’s
wide
tombmy fingers
ran
along the smooth
dead
bone
& in a crack
I saw your
break
all the darkness
held inside
& so
variously figured
I should
indeed
take the bones
back
as the cracked
darkness
shared
might resonate
between usso then
I first held the skull
up
brushed off
leaf muck
put it
aside
& over
time
picked
over
the dead
made a small
fine pile
of the best bones
& then
held
the deceased’s
naked clatter
in an
armful
picked
up the skull
with my
remaining
hand
& walked
back down riverI held
my cache of white
like a baby
by the
welling, turning
water
took a narrow
path
over rock
by the rapids
where the
river spilled
the story
witnessed
all the dead
danced &
cried
in the cataract
of death
reflected
in the transparent
glissade
of water
then I rested
at a wire
fence
pushed all the bones
beneath
& crossed a wide grass
paddock
tall
seed-heads
licking the bones
as I passed
down by another
pomegranate
thicket
& then by the river
again
down
a dark tunnel
of trees
beside
deep black water
blue sky
mirrored
dead leaves sailing
through
a gallery
of overhanging she-oaks
& gums
maiden-hair ferns
the water’s
hushed
movementI came up
from
the river
out from the tree
shadows
holding the baby
load of bones
the skull
& when
I arrived at the house
she said
how when at first
she saw me
walking
from the distant corner
of the paddock
she had
panicked in horror
thinking
I was carrying
a dead child
up from the
riverwe
laughed at this
as I lay
the bones at her feet
with some
dignity
for the substantial
presentation
of the dead
and we
looked at them
wordlessly
eternally
not a child
just bonesit was Easter
so we had time
to begin
making all kinds
of new
conditions
found
an old
bicycle wheel
rim
& tied
the ribs in
a hanging
circle
for the wind
to reanimate
& hallow
as her break
grew
wider
darker
& for a while
I broke
alongside her
was perhaps
even broken
by myself
butI kept the bones
whole
the whole time
in a box
I bore
from house
to house
over the years
the skull
always
nailed in the wall
above
my writing desk
the vertebrae
placed
delicately
on windowsills
& bookshelves
their
long thin arms
white
angelic souls
dead
wombs
full of the river’s
echo
silent letters
on the book spines
unknowingly
radiantthat’s how
there are still
all these
old
bones of mine
on my desk
on bookshelves
& today
after a dream
where I
measured out the years
in bones
laid out
one
after the other
I held
the same vertebrae
I brought up
from
the river that day
& in its dead
light weight
gravity
I knew in fact
after all
it was a child
all along
not a bone
we held between us
then but
a child of the hollow
centre
where love like
marrow
of the same
flesh & blood
grew & grew
by the altar
of our bones
&
when they broke
they all
dried out
a river of dark blood
escaped
into the atmosphere& so now
all the bones
are empty
corridors of dust
the child
a pile of bones
offering
as it did
back then
to be nothing
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones