Darling, this new house is full of spiders.
Overnight they sew their white packets
of love. In the garden next door lives a frog
with a croon like knocking on wood
or a disproportionately
large and deep-pitched raindrop.
These days, I petrify on the deck staring out
over the gorge, all this seething bush.
It’s an oceanic feeling.
Meanwhile I am trying to excise the word luck
from my vocabulary ever since you said
the nearest thing is a series
of semi-causal events triggered by industriousness
and a repeated responsible decision-making.
What I believe: we have accumulated
more goodness than we deserve.
Are you also perturbed how the spiderlings keep
disappearing overnight? But this morning
the eucalypts are drenched
in mist and birdsong
and the scent I’m wearing called ‘Nightingale’
is pink dust at the back of my throat.
The sweet eye of a storm.
Hush: our love sits very patient,
almost unmoving. And I don’t stop inhaling
even as the knocking approaches.
