Thursday Nov 6th at 7.30 pm.
Featuring Marcella Polain, reading from her new book of poems, Therapy Like Fish. "La Tropicana Cafe", 177 High Street, Fremantle.
A selection of poems can be found at
http://johnleonardpress.gravitron.com.au/media/File/polain.pdf
Therapy like fish
He has eyes like a sky he wants me to fall into.
On his wall is an illusion, an invitation
a shutter that opens over miles of sea.
Squalls come and go all afternoon,
light pales yellow and mauve, an old bruise.
I doze and wake from dreams of a storm and a shuttered room,
my tongue thick as a page.
Somewhere, I know, there are lines of notes.
Oh, saviour, let me cut them up
re-arrange them for you, into poems:
they. Will read. like suffering.
Also. Sometimes I have. hated. you.
At the beginning.
All night. I think. of. edges. and
how close. Can she. I get.
(For once – just once – hold out your hand.
Let me touch you with one finger
the way – did I tell you? – I was alone and
someone touched me)
You are unreadable as the surface of the sea.
Still I have seen the shadow of a single sentence
swim a dark leviathan across your face.
You are witness to the words I haul, one by one,
into the glistening palms of my hands.
Such small offerings.
How they twitch there, naked and translucent
as fish.
How many times will I long to fall
through the sky, into the deep pool of your arms
to be weightless, still
an unasked question?
© Marcella Polain 2008 • Therapy Like Fish: New and Selected Poems
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