Skinprint Extract
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Her window looks out to ivory
shrouds, thin naked limbs
belached and beribboned with a
waist of wire, the bite of axe.
The cockatoos are exotic water
lillies on a funeral pyre
of sky flowing branches
her grandfather has ringbarked
her horizon
and salt rusts the blades,
the oar strokes of her pasture.
She will never sail
from her window
and the lillies screech
over the shine of glass.
She is the coffin
and the trees the pall
bearers.
shovelled the grave
with thin crusts of salt.
FigI peel the fig,
teeth pulling pink
flesh lined with pearl
drop seeds.
I become the plunderer of short-lived
jewels, robbing the parrots
of their pirate profession
noting the ripening plumpness
of other figs
savouring them for a future
as yet uncomissioned
and unripe,
giving a glancing thought
to the blessing that calls
this tree to fruit
and deflects the curse
of a barren branch
an unsharing meshing
of soil and sun and rain.
This is the taste
of blessing
all Mediterranean sweetness
and sandalled Damascus
road,
enough for
travelling sustenance.