An attack of oxblood frogs
in the attic of you,
and our memories
are spent on dime store
records, index art lectures,
in two thousand and eleven
and the cup of prize
that was never drunk.
Happier in weeds,
as bees in the weed,
the wife of the wind.
In the Alaska of Paris,
you find your man
in the palm of your foot.
In the nape of his neck,
the longed-for baby,
a longed-for apricot,
fluffy child hair in the pocket –
watch for effervescence.
The ringmaster turns,
sighs red-backed tears.
All chats evolve up
and around equity
the sun is never here.
The cut of the envelope,
lost repeated airs,
an excess of fingers
entices subdivision.
The fun of it is in the timing.
The home shimmers to mirage,
mimicking frangipani explosions.
Yesterday when I was a child,
falling in and out of knowing,
I sullied soursobs on corned beef,
scratched off three winning clovers
when I scraped my knee, collected
coins in a wooden shoe
and I knew
gens sans feu et sans aveu
tomorrow, by sundown,
vagabonds, discharged soldiers, jailbirds,
swindlers, lazzaroni, all my uncles:
pickpockets and tricksters,
entrepreneurs,
pimps, parakeets, and porters,
literati, organ-grinders,
rag-pickers, cloud rappers,
knife grinders,
tinkers,
and beggars,
will arrive for their consolations
and they will say,
it’s high time to decry the mirror moon,
remove the hinges off families
confined to screens and rooms,
tug at their hair, your hair, my hair,
until braids loosen dropping stars
that tumble across wet shoulders
and again, we will become children,
falling in and out of knowing,
breeding our own ways,
sharing cuttings and sandwiches
and having nothing.
You ask acrobat
to show you dusk.
Light-domed cloud?
Salmon moon?
An antiquity of options
spread before paper:
beige brown black grey.
The showroom display’s
exotic arrangement of
affordable orphanages
confuses the flowers.
While angelic orders
confound the principal.
You blow hot into
the palm of credit.
Your interest ate
cockroaches
for sustenance,
with friends’ desires
as appetiser.
You lie famished
on fake grape,
stomach dust-lined.
Your spleen ate fairies
and spat not once.
Served on paper plates by
a desperate real estate
agent with wiped feet,
fallen asleep at the step.
Do not wake him.
He will whimper,
lick at your crotch,
piss in excitement.
Mia van den Bos is a poet based in Tarntanya/Adelaide, Australia.
