how can I forget? a frozen winter sunset when I was playing

in the blow-up pool with mum and Kelisha said – there’s some guy here

to take your baby away. then, out of breath. mum in tears – just you wait

for the storm of needles and waves. next door, they were watching

the news avoid our context again. and it’s started raining again. 
white cockatoos glide over the water. the moment stunning

because of the sad, sad beauty. because the sun reflected every tear
whilst nothing more was said, or was it the prayers inside my head

that started to tighten in all that sadness, making the mozzies

devour my trauma and common sense?
because you might need somebody too. you might be somebody that

needs listening to. that much I can gather in the light of each reflection
but between now and tomorrow I want to remember all the hungers

I have ever known. but where is Kelisha? has she forgotten me?

over the water, a thousand white cockatoos and the splashing sound
of silence as thunder and lightning fall. there is a reflection she won’t

let me leave behind. when I woke up and she was gone I got scared. 
when I can’t rub up against you, your touch is all I ever feel

in the music of the howling wind. some guy approaches, shivering.

mum says a scarred surface never heals. who am I to say any different?
there’s some guy breathing heavily in the dark. Kelisha draws close

and softly, into his ear. she says – I’ve come to say goodbye.
there were more tears. the sky is closing in. tomorrow, I will walk

back to myself along the iced edge of the lake.