This is for you Melbourne and all your men
so sexy and so
lonely
I’d like to kiss your
mouth
for long discovering minutes and lean
heavy against you and feel
you getting
ready
In my dream we had fences
to cross, dry country wires
and your sisters wanted to carry you
but I made you struggle, wouldn’t
help you, you, caught in the wires
wearing too many clothes,
and I laughed so
scornfully
But that was a dream. Awake, I’d like to just take
my wet-tongue tip and my scratchy
calloused guitar-fretting fingertips and my smooth
writing right hand
so cool and
stroky
and lick every inch of your sensitive
skin so
slowly
where there are hairs, scars, pierces, tattoos
and where you’re unbroken like a
sweet fresh newflesh
baby
swirl little echoes all over you, make of you
a monumental abstract painting, one tiny
piece at a time, make of you
a multifaceted craftswoman’s poem,
edit each silent-ache painword away
dissolve your thoughts into pages
of rhythmic
ecstasy
But I’m going back to my man and my home
so preserve your
dignity
Ask instead that a lover finds you soon,
maybe a woman who’s not a poet, a wordless,
earthly woman who grows lush herbs
in a suburban
nursery
a woman with a kingsize bed in a warm room
in a house where you can have some
privacy
a woman who knows how to love
and desire one man,
one place
exclusively
a woman who will not carry you but knows
how to hold you
properly
A woman who will love your historic face
and its sad-angry
poetry.