you're weird- 

water, 

the same silence cut ribbons 

on the rest, 

  the four men out back, 

  leaning again

  wind like sailing 

  sheafs of paper 

  a delicate sound

  

  run into the spinifex.

one was named Red, worn lime shirt, 

in sandals. a roman clef, pitched italian and 

waving empire 

 to the girl on the bike in the ruffled skirt, 

  with the sirloin lips and egyptian sand

   in her teapot.

ours was the same as that; a vision of ancestry, 

either tongued or not said, cadence of 

oars on water, the same sentence 

as the one i thought i read. 

it pulls us strongly, measured, assuredly 

to where the altar thrums, with charcoal bruising 

the air 

and the kids on the dock with their eyes on the clouds 

sing to their parents old songs wise and well worn now. 

we were the same as those fairy-floss tunes, 

sweet at first but more sticky, more cloying after seconds 

and thirds. 

it is nothing to paint you in beside those men

all i need was a photo and a brush of black sky- 

when the rain heaves itself across the pacific, that 

and a dry page, a 

fist of charcoal seemed to do, i smudged you one step 

behind Red, who had stopped looking sideways noting the 

the girl on the bike with euphemism tailing swift behind her, 

i set you there for him, the same vision calling 

me back to the tree-tops, 

where i could sit pretty, mangled, 

well away from culture, 

carving bark figurines of us

and noosing them with wind 

from up high.