A complete guide to missing

A complete guide to missing

Follow the corner

search the thinking chairs,

open the surroundings

vacuum pets

small children

your boundary

with hopes of a tiny piece of breath,

accept the possibility that it's

high and low, here and there, in and out,

and you've come up with avenues

If you believe your puzzle was never there

rare,

then see

you've already constructed the however.

A "cut up" poem using text from this site.

Rapunzel Retold

Nothing would take hold

inside my flesh. Babies turned

upside down and drowned.

I went to the witch

Looking for a magic word

to grow a daughter

The word on my tongue:

Rapunzel. Bitter weed

so close I could taste.

My belly grew, pear

ripening, a marvel, still

the pain of wanting.

I could not deny

what the body needed

to keep her living.

I wailed for her.

My husband brought in armfuls.

Rapunzel.

Drizzled with bee juice.

Cooked in oil, or taken raw

dirt clinging to the roots

Moons came and went

Sky rolling in waves. Such pain

but the good kind. Blessed.

One perfect day.

We joked my milk would run green.

She was so thirsty.

What a marvel, hey?

Did you ever see a baby
born with so much hair?

You is Ready

made at Storybird

The Singing Years

made at Storybird

Lasting

Last thing

Last night

Last minute

Last dance

Last drinks

Last chance

Last train

At long last

Last week

Last year

Every last drop

Last kiss

Last days

Last laugh

Last hurrah

Nothing can last forever

Last ditch attempt

Last tango in Paris

Last man standing

Last temptation

Nice guys finish last

Last resort

Last stand

Last gasp

Last I heard

Last meal

Last breath

Last legs

Last words

Last rites

Last post

Last but not least

Last line

----

It's our last night in St Andrews. I feel like I've written the sad poems about saying goodbye, so I just played with the idea of last tonight. Still I feel that something needs to be said about endings and beginnings. Most of my blogging life has happened here. I blogged when we bought the house and when we moved in. I blogged the bushfires and when Snappy died and I didn't blog when the neighbour's boy drowned but I did blog the poems Frederique wrote for me the morning after, when she could barely write, because my sadness was so palpable. My father-in-law died when we lived here and my half sister too and my mother fought breast cancer. 

And of course, Avery was born and the house became too small to accommodate us all.

And there were the tiny moments. Everyday life went past, ordinary and miraculous. 

We've loved living here and I know we'll all miss this house, but we are exciting about the move, fifteen minutes down the road in the car, on the trainline, still surrounded by trees and hills. 

Sister nothing

Sister nothing,

the book is Alice

considering her own

daisy-chain trouble

the waistcoat-pocket world found suddenly,

a moment falling,

the deep, slowly coming dark.

See:

maps and pictures, pegs,

orange disappointment,

jar of killing somebody,

cupboards of tumbling down stairs,

earth, Longitude, Latitude.

Words to fall through,

fancy air.

Think girl, never ask.

I see it written.

--

an erasure poem, taken from the first page of Alice in Wonderland

bug that flies into the light and stays there

Today I spent seven hours in a suburban shopping mall

with three children, forty four degrees outside

the last day of a week long heatwave we had lunch in the foodcourt

and I settled my three kids at a table with chicken and chips

and walked to another shop to buy coffee and a salad

well the three year old walked around the tables saying

‘have you seen my mother she went shopping and she disappeared’

and the ten year old followed behind and explained

that I was just over there, and grandmothers frowned and smiled

and it’s a wonder no one called the police even though really

the kids were quite safe it was just a bit crowded and I didn’t

notice the three year old slide down from his seat

because I was watching my coffee being made 

then we were sitting and eating and the three year old  ran off to 

play at the jungle gym and one girl ran off to see what movies were on 

and the other went to spend her pocket money at Smiggle

I was alone but pulled apart in three directions

then a lady asked for my table and I felt like I was giving up something important, 

but I couldn’t say no, so I bussed my own crockery,

tipping the last of my wilting salad into the bin and stood in the middle

of nowhere, checking weather apps on my phone, looking at the fires

near home and waiting for them all to come back to me

there was a bird trapped in the food court, fluttering into the walls,

also seeking shelter from the heat, the cleaner rang some kind of central office

and asked if there was a protocol for birds and I was concerned to overhear

there’s not and I thought here I am in a place between living and death,

a holding pattern, a neutral existence, and I will transcend or descend

outside the city holds the heat, distant, white, shimmering

Journey

We’re in the tissue

of the atmosphere

stretched over

the below world.

In the distance

a lone ochre cloud

drifts into a solid.

Una says, ‘it’s a dragon.'

Uninhabitable

the earth spreads

thinner and thinner

moving away from us.

We circle the runway

curious, hopeful.

We’re all wondering the same thing.

In the terminal,

they are watching the sky.

Waiting.

Total Recall

for Frederique

I know you

less than ever. 
The turning tide of days
sweeps me aside.

You tell me

you’ve forgotten everything

because you don’t understand

how memory works.

Radio show I listened to once said

every time we access a memory

we place it in jeopardy,

risk losing it forever,

all we’re left with

is the memory of a memory.

Like opening a Russian doll

and finding inside the idea of a Russian doll.

Remember the time

Evangeline cried

because she wanted

to play back her dreams?