Auditions
In August morning’s serein I stand with
a mender in a verandah’s shade, too cold
to haggle.
The town is a Sudoku grid I wear, with people
crossing each other; wakes of destiny
in counted steps.
He stitches angel hair into my skin, white diving
into melanin and coming up red to gasp
at the sky. Starlit.
On a chess board, Beryl and I gallop, ballerinas
from night to night, wool for moments, drifting
in floodlight.
I shuffle through lifetimes trying them out
like mold-kissed shirts
to find that we’re placed in this life
only to live lives we can’t have.
Crossroads
The street at last sighs soft as a
whimper.
A breeze winnows towards it past a naked
pole.
A brown chips paper bag finds its lost way
drifting.
A red man taps inside a simulation in the eye of a traffic
light.
No man crosses, no car leaves a wake of
crosswords.
A puzzle leans on a garbage bin with spartan
ballets.
I walk to her, I murmur to her, the breeze
puffs
her long dress. I see a hull floating on
stars
and the city is trapped in my belly until I
speak.
She babbles a sultry hymn and a church is
trapped
somewhere in hate but what is the cost of a
world?