I.

the idea of a productive morning          an ideal of productivity          a man walking on 

the beach in the early light                     I become a space into which his care pours   & 

so am lifted out of poverty          the family wander elsewhere          in the first home 

without others, a cactus bloomed in the backyard          a night-flowerer          & the 

noisy miners swooped the dog 	



II.

in the sun reading about a winnicott case                    a boy who obsessively tied 

furniture to other furniture with string          an attempt to ameliorate fear of 

separation, desertion                    you are a representative representing self                    & 

we are all bodies & desires                    pulling at chairs tethered with string 	 	




III.

counting the days between letters                          small events take on too much meaning
  	
(perhaps others can smell this)                                              the strangeness of this practice, 

the realisation that no one is keeping track       that here one can do anything one wants

around you I am inevitably trivial             & thus strangely peaceful                 we reach 

for a device & form a window



IV.

what was reserved & parched opens                    (a masculine-flowering)               noting 

delicate acts on television       I watch a man lift his hand from where he was touching 

a woman          his hand is covered in blood      she begins scrambling for the date     his 

face softens with surprise that she contains such redness, such vitality              another 

program & the most tender act I have ever seen on television: a man putting makeup 

on another man while they talk softly about their lives



V.

I suddenly become afraid of losing my notebook, of losing track                       in the post 

you arrive surrounded by red, a fragile packet                    everything turns on a number

& a series of arrivals, always delayed, awkward, charmless                       so I speak less 

& read more                                    & with the dogs inhabit an unbroken weekday quiet

on the bench they lean their dog bodies against mine                         scenting the air
 	
we consider the backyard and it reflects back to us green    always more green  	

our companions, a leaf-curling spider, the buzz pollinators               & a magpie lark 

who walks the pool cover like a waterlily



VI.

in the night vegetation is removed          a sandstone wall is constructed to keep tides out 

of lounge rooms                they've trucked in 
beach sand          the environmentalist says 

it will only work for now          there’s talk of compromise          the casuarinas ghost & 

the commelina chokes garden beds                                    I am struck once more by your 

fear of sentiment          is the goal to write like you?      to erase the self          push up 

and up          a relentless stripping



VII.

today more reading: an author who says hugging a eucalypt is like hugging a horse’s 

neck          I tried it, it’s true      firm life against your cheek                              the other 

day I saw a journal that said no poems with birds                  I told the wattlebirds out 

the back they said fuck that                                 I told the sky it said so much life against 

your cheek feathers cambium green blue