apparently the heart is
“a muscle and it pumps blood (like a) big old black steam train”*
I am the sloth
wanting to be perfect before setting
foot in a gym
a gentle embrace is a harsh squeeze
or pat a knee in the car
which, spitting juice as from a blister
multiplies teaming bruises
across the soft pear flesh of mine
*Frank Bennett stole from T Perkins
I stole from them both
his heart coiled
and snatched me in it,
an overstretched
telephone cord
the message broke and came
in pieces repetitive
you don’t love me
I’m stopped
between the straight lines
whose design framed us
.. l .-.. — …- . l -.– — ..-
didn’t make it to breakfast
her head stuck to the pillow
elfin face, smelling of Velvet soap, sugar-matted hair and all breath
intaken
as we wait beyond “keep off my side of the room!” and see strands of pink pulled by
maternal disapproval?
not this time
she’s biting her lip, laughter taken in as
marshmallow medusa peeps
“Dad said it was for Ron”
I don’t hear that expression anymore
my sister’s hair is a gossamer
perfection and all studies
failed my search for explanations I’ll have to
save them for ’r on
at the top of the stairs
I always see a fallen woman at the bottom
it doesn’t matter what stairs
nor that every day I climb and descend
she is there broken
her shins look at me
long limbed, askew
individual uncooked pasta bundles with a stray or two
they are my limbs but I spend so much time
in my face, behind my eyes I forget myself
and that body is there to remind me
am I afraid of falling? no
no quick sickening as of a beautiful view
no blood
it is the photo finish cut
and dried
crossing uneven roads I see her
or slippery rain slicked
marble stairs and wood
she never slips, trips or skids she is already broken
and I am the murderer who pushed her
and cicadas
in Latin America
are Dolly Parton buxom in sound
I imagine them with falsh lashes
nothing like the far awayness, the coy
cicadas of my youth
farther away itself last I looked
they shucked off browning cases
sorry prawns after a good meal
these cicadas play soccer with their cast-offs
their triumph pierces my half-sleep
Stew for dinner, and rice. Worse for Fleur than the unrecognisable meat and vegetables and slimy eggplant were the all too recognisable tomatoes, from a tin, apologetic. She put one whole into her mouth and running her tongue over it, felt it as a wet dog’s nose, not belonging in her dinner. Reaching under the table in search of the real dog’s nose, he ready to receive gifts with tail thumping labrador complicity, she gained purchase on the thing with her teeth, whereupon it exploded acidic and nasty. She tried to separate the pips but there was a viscosity like raw egg holding them in. A seemingly endless time before the thing was no longer in her mouth. She would have sworn it was the heat bringing tears to her eyes but it was the disappointment that such a lovely colour could taste so bad. She ate around the remaining tomatoes, rice, vegetables, meat, even the sauce went, leaving three accusative lumps on the plate. Sad little lumps, naked, skinless. Mum walked in, banished the dog to the laundry and began to prepare icecream in a modest cone for everyone else but you have to eat
everything on your plate.
This scene played out a number of times, a number of dinners, and just when you think it doesn’t get any worse, the meal is really really cold. Fleur doesn’t know when they started, but she had recurring dreams of tomato-men pursuing her. In half-dream, lying in bed, the twin of her sister’s wrought iron white painted in the room that was perfectly made for two perfect little girls Fleur wondered when she might have the opportunity to meet. Sophie slept, all the chatter prohibited at dinner coming out in her sleep. Fleur listened to her, waiting for secrets, but listened also for the soft thud of tomato-men footsteps. She knew that a misplaced arm surpassing the limits of the mattress, or head turned asymetrically would give them reason to come for her. Headed up by one that looked a lot like her father, naked men, instead of the tin or barrel she’d seen somewhere in Disney they had tomatoes about their bellies. They were coming to tie bricks around her neck and put her in the deep end of the swimming pool.
This feeling was exacerbated by the plaits in her hair pulled tight and tied with bobbles. Such an unsophisticated word, there were a few in different colours, yellow and green for the school uniform (bottle green they called it, Fleur thought for the bottlebrush plant that was also part of the school emblem, later she learnt with glee that it was for opaque green beer bottles), plastic or glass marbles attached to elastic that tied tight around her never-cut hair, they dug into the sides of her head and prevented her from lying on her side. She wanted to take them out but that would risk the plaits untying and there would be no time tomorrow for Mum to redo them, it required 20 minutes at least. So she couldn’t turn her head unless she lay flat on her stomach and got pins and needles in her arms trying to sustain it, dribbling into the pillow. She couldn’t turn her head but was afraid that as soon as she slept this would somehow happen and the tomato men would come with their punishment.
A few years later there was a cathartic session on the beach in Greece in front of a Pacman consul. Called over by the brothers expecting a boring space invaders game she and Sophie were given the opportunity to kill eggplants! A salty joyous stabbing at the buttons and eggplants felled, she saw red tomato-men imploding too.
There was the time they ate spaghetti and Shawn, who was somewhat hyperactive that night or more than usual, took a long strand and threw it at the ceiling, a hoot of triumph when it stuck. No way to maintain the obligatory silence so Mum and Dad in the next room, their plates luxuriating on their laps, could let Mr Naylor tell them important things. Giggling and holding their breaths whilst Mum came in to hush, she caught Shawn on a chair, knife in hand to get the spaghetti strand down which was just too much to bear and why couldn’t she understand? If she and Dad after Mr Naylor’s news watched that Monty Python Show, thinking the kids were safely in bed but really bunched up behind the couch and watching, biting into the musty upholstery so no giggles could escape. It seemed just too funny for Mum and Dad to truly understand, the roles should be reversed and they should be sat up there the four of them lined up in front of the tv.
Holding his breath was what Carl did best. They all had their turns at it, temper tantrums and toe stubs but icecream and Carl were more classic than Neopolitan. The first time when he yelped at the sensation of cold against his teeth the stern warnings from the living room were enough. The next time he stuffed it in and held his breath. (will he grow to associate pleasure with passing out? is this where those strangulation sex scenes begin, with children trying to eat quietly?) Carl, the little frog, the tall and skinny four year old, gulps icecream and slides seconds later into obscurity, onto the floor thunk
“What was that noise?”
The siblings, pragmatic, sat him wedged between two of them. Fleur watched him continue, fascinated, after each mouthful a brief fall into Sophie or Shawn’s shoulder, then he’d come to, look at the icecream, eyes go wide with pleasure and the next mouthful and thunk. Then up again like a weighted doll, as if nothing had happened.
“What’s going on in there?”
“Nothing – “
You’d think he’d pass out just looking at icecream now. Or that some Maxwell Smart would have knowledge and motive and steal up to him to whisper flavours in his ear and watch him swoon (lemon pavlova) all 6 feet of him will keel. No-one to catch him but the shoulder of the curb.
I tuck my thumbs under when I walk down the
street, not like making a fist but cradled as if to flick something
against the ring, not the index finger
it’s a habit so to speak
noticed yesterday after a manicure
A woman with dishpan hands manhandled mine
yellowing cracked flesh under the nails
surely that can’t be attributed to
smoking, she did what I now see is a sterling job
and overcharged
leaving, I nearly smudged the polish and that’s when I found it
This habit
you can’t hide your thumbs dancing tango, the right hand
held, as if to purposefully expose the thumb
left hand depending on bodies and dancing styles, on his back or around his
neck, try hiding thumb under his hair and he’ll think
expectant, that soon you’ll be getting it on.
.
Today I gained ground on that manicurist
ordering breakfast just before twelve I stayed
the place filling with French speaking Sunday suited perfectly turned out ladies to lunch
I stayed to read every version of every paper
to eavesdrop
when they tried to charge 20 I claimed the 13 from the breakfast menu special and not seeing
my thumbs, the cashier relented.
.
Is it defensiveness? a pathology untried?
Close your eyes and I won’t see you
I could walk down the street naked if you’d let me
cradle my thumbs
The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon
Things that arouse a fond memory of the past
Dried hollyhock
The objects used during the display of the dolls.
To find a piece of deep violet or grape colored material that has been pressed between the pages of a notebook.
It is a rainy day and one is feeling bored. To pass the time, one starts looking through some old papers. And then one comes across the letters of a man one used to love.
Last year’s paper fan.
A night with a clear moon.
Light blue high heels, like the blue shoes flung on the persian carpet in the house of my mother’s friend. The daughter had gone dancing and come home late – the only one of three daughters I never met but when I saw those shoes I knew I wanted to be her. They ate cherries by the swimming pool with wisteria overladen cascading down the bluestone walls. They wore white linen dresses which probably stained with cherry juice, their mother never scolding them.
The clipping from a Melbourne newspaper which sometimes serves as a bookmark. I was volunteering to record onto tape for the blind community, editing for appropriateness, the hesitation a delicious silence on the tape which introduces instead a report on diabetes: Fetish man lands in jail. Berlin: A man has been jailed for two years for stealing spectacles for sexual pleasure. The man, 27, repeatedly ripped glasses off the noses of mainly elderly men and used them to heighten his sexual passion. “He was like a little child when he came home with a new pair,” his wife said.
The hungry whine of the juice extractor squealing beetroot spraying purple inside the chamber. Rank smell of ginger.
The bar of soap fixed to a brass hook on the tiles of restaurant bathrooms in Buenos Aires, which, when it wears down oblong, slippery under one’s hands, brings to mind the male genitalia.
That’s filthy!
But I’m washing my hands …
(must research the history of this, name in Spanish and where it originated..)
Admiring a shoe on a crossed leg in a cafe or waiting room, the nearly imperceptible pulse coming from the heart of the person wearing it.
Seeing people my age or older with braces on their teeth and wanting to congratulate them for their perseverance.
Pretending I’m using a rotary dial when we talk via Skype, even though my phone isn’t a true rotary.
The dogs hanging over the wall like Greek-Australian teenage boys on the beach. Their pelts rolling lazy sweaters off their shoulders. Their tongues cherry pink …
We bought tacky alarm clocks playing the call to prayer with flashing lights when Mum and Dad farewelled the Middle East 4 years ago, but it is one of the most beautiful, haunting sounds.
Allah-u Akbar
Ash-hadu allā ilāha illallāh
There is another music that gives me the same heart swelling, aching lament - fado. A friend had given me a cd, but it wasn’t until I saw Carlos Saura’s Fados that it burned down the same course as the mezzuin awakening me at 5am throughout my primary school years.
Saturday night – Fado Tango Club. I felt compelled to go, although it was a sultry night, I had no reservation and no-one to go with. Just as I left the apartment building to take a bus it began to rain, fat drops, stronger water pressure than the shower, rain from a Japanese manga cartoon. Taking shelter as I alighted from the bus in a petrol station, I felt the imminence of disaster, the thunder and lightening very powerful, standing too close to flammables, the others sharing this space using their mobile phones, expressly forbidden in such places isn’t it? Torrents of water flowing down the street in front of me and people running by with plastic bags or umbrellas held in a futile gesture over their heads. A roar exploded from the high-rise apartment buildings nearby and I thought the end had come – but it was the hundreds of people watching Argentina retain a grip on their chances in the World Cup by winning a goal in the last seconds of the match against Peru.
Safely inside the club, a garage transformed into performance space, I was led to a table and told I’d be sharing it. Three men from Rio joined me and informed me with bristle that they’d be speaking in Portuguese. I realised that like many tourists from Brazil they’d possibly been treated badly by the locals. When I responded they warmed to conversation in Spanish, about the differences between Australia and Brazil, national identities, literacy, poverty, culture and music. Diego and Patricio are two brothers holidaying with their friend Gustavo, when I ask where the women are as I see that Patricio is married I’m told that they are well represented. By me.
There is a cat that lives in the garage, he has checked everyone out and continues to do so when the music starts. First 
we have an introduction with the reading of an official letter from the Embassy of Portugal in Buenos Aires, that tells us we will be witness to “the most attractive presentation. Fado is the music at the foundation of our ineffable projection towards others. Fado, and indeed tango, are characterised by their ability to carry song to the soul.” In fado there is a mysterious communion between happiness and tears – saudade - Portuguese for the blues, nostalgia, yearning, a difficult notion for translation. It is the underlying bittersweet carrying inside of loved ones whilst living far away from them, reflections of childhood that sear into the brain with the dettol smell of swine-flu disinfections throughout the city, looking at the shape of one’s thumbnail to conjure *Mum* - feeling oneself a misfit and yet delighting in it. Like the moriña the Spanish immigrants knew, it plays with the notion of spiritual exile.
These musicians know of it too, they have lived in Portugal as tango musicians and studied the famous tango singer Carlos Gardel, discovering the fados he recorded; and the tangos recorded by Amália Rodrigues, the great fado singer. She herself began as a tango dancer, so this progression of young Argentine musicians seems natural. Karina, who sings accompanied by 3 cousins playing Portuguese and acoustic guitar, and a bandoneon player, moves between the pride of the tango and saudade of fado by throwing a plain black shawl over her shoulders. I like the way her posture changes, she plays dress ups and looks us straight in the eye, seducing with tango, keening sexily on her stool; and maturing in fado. My table mates keep replenishing their beer and look at me teary eyed, standing to applaud at the end of each song. I’m pleased to be seated with them, behind me Argentines belt out the tangos, competing with the thunder, no humility.
At the end of the show I take my camera to Karina to show her the photos. I’d tried to capture the cat wandering the stage, and caught some good shots of her. Invited for a drink with the band, but the Brazilians want to continue the night (there’s only one life! think of the fado!) so I take Karina’s email address and venture into the rain. Two blocks away I can take the bus home, I’m replete. Perplexed however, that these men would rather go to a nightclub with their purchases of cds and t-shirts, than stay and talk to the musicians.
They insist that I join them; I don’t want to overlay a different music onto the experience. Gustavo and Diego jump into a cab to go dancing and Patricio and I take one together, he’ll go to their hotel and I’ll continue home.
In the car, Patricio is suddenly projecting
ineffably
towards me
I feel something, something is happening to me, I want to be with you.
Fado means destiny, fate. I tell Patricio his is not with me - surprisingly docile, he accepts my refusal and the cds I hand him as they spill out of his back pocket when he awkwardly leaves the car. He seems bemused, as if by some cinematic irony the spiked drink were switched and he’s just starting to catch on.
The taxi pulls away and I feel saudade, farewelling the friendship that will never be, the wife I’ll never meet.
we used to say
ah hell we’re young
but now we see that life is sad
-Kate Bush
