can you hear me I can hear you
the trees are a comfort
to the fact
a corporation has christened
an old verb into something new
the birds of different cities are communing with each other
though they could never fly close enough to be properly acquainted
singing tinny songs through my phone speaker
as we walk through corresponding reserves
i think they are confused.
and that we are the same.
at home
let’s pretend
we’re eight years old again
at a sleepover
only this time
let’s push our rooms together
in cyberspace
in this place we’ve made
can you close the window
(all of your metadata is floating away)
(into the blue-bit night)
cut out the middle part entirely
the going from one place to another
the walking
the train
the walking again
it’s a drag
let’s not go anywhere
no more going
only gone
strange how connecting two places that are so comfortable
can be so uncomfortable
i can see what you have on your walls
and you on mine
who’s opening that door?
never mind they shut it.
(but they’re welcome to come in)
I miss it
the warm-down when you filter through
strangers in the street
(warm bodies and conversations that aren’t yours)
the changing of space
gradually easing you
into aloneness
no more of that here
cut out that unnecessary middle bit
that middle bit being
the entire world
the rows and rows
of food and gravestones
and lists of places
we cannot go
or never should’ve gone.
wasting hellos on unsmiling passersby
who deflect your greeting
into the neighbour’s garden
not today
(were they like that before?)
or dad leaving out the “myth”
in “model minority myth”
and i’m too tired for this
so i skirt out the kitchen
he’s dropped the “myth”
outside
unfurling
like dead jasmine
pin it on the wall
and remember
the body all delicate
passing through tunnels
slicked with static
and steady yourself
and the light’s dimming
and your foot’s sliding
all the way
to the end of the tunnel
and at the end is an eye
and the eye is opening
in aisle four
equidistant between cartons of milk and chewing gum.
i can feel it.
this place
is stained.
now i was once afraid
of it
and once is enough
i grab the packet of tim tams
which crinkles reliably in my hand
the sound reiterates
a particular memory of elasticity
of the air teasing back and forth.
i knew the air had that property.
the undercurrent of
a menacing vibration
is just a vibration
reality is supple here
and look
there
it springs back
pretending
like nothing happened
at all
This poem was commissioned by Diversity Arts Australia as part of the I Am Not a Virus project. Supported by Australia Council for the Arts, Create NSW, Creative Victoria, City of Sydney, City of Parramatta and Inner West Council.
