3 June 2025
submitted for Australian Poetry Anthology Vol. 12 2025 on 18 June 2025
aide-de-camp
misalliance says alice she smiles her eyes closed her head against a book no i can’t believe a word of it she thinks the title’s choke point what on earth the hell in heaven’s name could that be about but you’d never know looking at her chilled expression and her creaseless brow all brain waves deep below the surface i suppose i could match them with a smile
or catch them with electrodes and some tape
but to actually live in my body which is my pledge today i’ll have to wake her up which could be difficult considering she’s a clay girl ceramic as the day is night point of honour she hasn’t opened her eyes since 1995 or ever would be more accurate a clumsy
superlative i suppose even numbers would be good enough’s another way of putting it 2, 4, 6, 8…in 1970 i knew a kid called geoffrey who could keep an arithmetic progression going for hours on end he being 8 with life to spare his father was a pig farmer of the suaver kind lovely fella with a lovely very clever wife geoffrey’d catch you on the landing or by the bathroom door he’d still be there when you returned usually somewhere in the millions and i didn’t have a casio to check that he was right i just knew he was his look was earnest his eyes moist his gaze went straight ahead the monotone
when i run my fingers over alice i remember sally someone made her still makes stuff like this rare early work it must all rhyme the light caresses the bookcase the books the dust that once was me