'Breathe' by Cameron Lowe | States of Poetry Vic - Series One
The particulars of the evening being, whether consciously
evoked or – 'a great shemozzle'
as Kent said –
merely one day washing over and into the depths
of the plane tree
and those other trees of
darker green
whose names I don't claim to know – the pissing
possums don't know them either
so worry not – and the block of cream
apartments where one half of Gert
'the writer' Loveday
lives –
'Thou art not possum nor lemur nor
mathematician' –
that is, the particulars
– putting to one side money,
its lack, that sudden straining
for breath – the particulars
being exactly what they are
and mostly the same
as the last time
I looked –
Frida Kahlo's face
upon a field of green
beads, a tanker's red hull
through palms –
sway on sweet palms
against the lying
of the Right – they don't,
but the last sun falls
on roof tiles, on the corrugated
iron of the carport, on
the plane tree's leaves,
etc –
the particulars can go
on and on, or run off
to flirt with Gert –
'cyclamen, sing awhile
with me' – I was thinking
of love in the abstract way
one sometimes does,
this being the hour of
my lungs for now and
ever after –
when you spoke behind Kahlo's face,
'dinner's nearly ready – I'll just
have a shower'
and Edith Pevensey's eyes a green leaning
to gold in the 'luminous hum'
as bats take to sky,
in the slow fade –
fade on – of Tuesday's light
Cameron Lowe