1. Magician
She is marked as magician:

sticks, flame, shadow and rope.

She is restless, there is talk of prostitution

behind the floured hands of the kitchens

the manicured administrations.
There is the tilted town,

lives operating in a

perpetual potato winter

faces still sharp around the kitchen table,

only now with a digital accuracy.
The photocopier, the phone, the chair

just so.


2. Butcher
The butcher is perfect in the window

her head bent to the task

her hands blurred

over solid machines.

Linearity imposed

on squat meats,

baroque with a marbled complexity.
Everyday her immaculate apron

a canvas of hunger.

She has lost a finger

and expects more than this,

as her TV glows

with a tubular procession

explosions, diamonds, and a meaningful glance.

Her head bends to the task

her hands moving in her lap.


3. Wormer
Her hands are the only tool she has,

they are full of the type of debris

embedded in the mangroves:

broken bottle, jagged cans

and condoms.
All around her there are plants

breathing. On a quiet day

she can hear them.

As they cast bars of shadow across

her back she bends,

worming.

Mangroves mock her in their successful living:

Reproducing, transpiring, synthesizing

and succulent,

while she is as dry and transparent as

the stocking in her hand.
She is seen on the shores,

estuarine creatures moving about her.

They are strung up in her hut

both talisman and food.

She is tolerated there

for one day

she too shall become prey


4. Gardener
The flowers, the plants

are there as expected

complex

she remembers

in cross section

under the microscope all those years

ago at school.

Their construction

an orchestra of desire

cornets of moist petals

great swabs of pollen.
With her pencils and calipers,

how could she have known

that the house would come,

a deceptively simple family

living on inside.