When you bite into that thin, white bread
and turn the pages of another book,
I smile and look deliberately to where
the sunlight slides over the waxy leaves
of the lemon tree. And that one look
might tell you that I'd like to go and live
with you, in a house swept up by the trees
and the buoyant birds … and multitudes
of roses that make the rain turn red.

That, or if my end-of-day stare
seems like more of a dismissive
one, you might lay down the book and food
and say, as one might, to an old bookmark,
"You'd better pick them before it gets dark."

you have
Sunday's hands

I have bitten mine off
I don't like myself
when you have gone
to visit dead people

(I also have
a hiccup in my throat
and the smell of paper
still reminds me of you)

my eyes see
that the trees by the cross
have tentacle shadows
and the fruit on them
has shrivelled

I used to sit in there
reading poetry
now I can't hold
bits of paper

you have a woman
with palms in the mud

Oh, girl, standing
there alone
your hands protruding, relieved,
from white cuffs,
hair a strange
corona turned
ginger by the morning sun:
How glad I am to
see you there
alone, waiting for a bus that may
be late,
almost swaying, as if tired,
but gazing comfortably
at the pines across the road.

I found this word
written on a piece of paper
'appearance of being true,
semblance of actuality,
something that seems true'

and I feel now
that I am entering innocence
a dark red parasol
denim legs
a stain of sunset…

yesterday I watched a small child
with thin hair
cutting pom-poms from a
loving wool jumper
and it was
for a time
delightful to me.

Today an adult
feeds me as if I am the child
and takes my pulse
in case I have quietly died.

I dreamed of
open graves stacked for better
or for worse over the hills,
and a mad rush to a basin
on a pedestal
because there was blood
on our hands

and in contusion this morning
I found
verisimilitude
written on a piece of grey paper

so when you tell me, dear,
that your life is full of
nothing in particular
don't be surprised when I coo
Don't worry.

I am entering innocence.
I don't care.

Lucy's wrists were hurting again.
Ian thought she'd lost weight. She was skinnier. Even on her arms, where the cuffs of her shirts came away too loosely from her sore wrists.
Sometimes Ian saw her looking at those wrists with a kind of calm expression on her face, and he worried about her. What if she killed herself?
Lucy, on the other hand, was worried about her name. Lucy.
While Ian looked at her skinny wrists and legs, Lucy wrote her name on paper and looked at that. No matter how fat the nib of her pen was, her name always looked so skinny. She began to think of pills or foods she could have to put a bit of flesh on the towering L and dangling y. She wondered if she could inject something into it to make it more voluptuous.

The cat came in with a skink in its mouth.
Ian found a piece of paper with Lucy's name written on it over and over.
Then he knew she was going to kill herself.
He went over the house and threw the razors in the bin and turned off the gas and made sure the rope in the garage was safely tucked away.
He wrote his own name over and over on a piece of paper and put it in a place where she would find it. Then he went to work.

When Lucy found it she was horrified.
How could normal, ordinary-sized Ian have such a large name?
She held the paper for a while. Then her wrists got sore and she dropped it.
All she could think of was how to slim Ian down.
She went to the kitchen and took all the food and put it in the bin.
When the bin was full she took out the plastic bag lining and tied the handles together.
She went to take it outside for the rubbish men.

On the driveway the cat was crunching on a cicada.
He was crouching down and his belly was spread out across the concrete.
Lucy walked past the cat and the plastic bag exploded.
She bent down to gather up the rubbish and cut her hands on the razors.
She went inside to find some bandages and got blood all over the bathroom.
She tried to open the first aid box but her wrists were sore and her fingers were slippery.
The cat came in and rubbed around her legs.
He got blood in his fur and left red pawprints on the floor.
A cicada wing was stuck in his whiskers.
Lucy decided to go next door for help.
She rolled her hands inside her shirt to try and stop the bleeding.

Ian was coming back from work. He stopped at the end of the driveway and cried out.
Lucy's shirt was stained with blood.
The cat rubbed blood on Ian's legs.
Lucy shouted out, There were razors in the rubbish.
Ian said, I put them there. This food isn't rubbish.
And Lucy knew that he was trying to kill her.

Ian remembered the blood and walked towards Lucy.
The cat picked at the food on the driveway.
Lucy screamed.

A neighbour was leaving his house to pick up an English exchange student his son's school had organized for them. He heard Lucy's scream and ran over to see blood on her hands and on the cat and Ian's trousers and the food in the driveway.
Ian tried to explain the mess.

Lucy saw that her neighbour had BROWN written on a cardboard rectangle.
She asked him what it was for.
Ian said, We've got to get her to the hospital.
Lucy looked at her neighbour and asked what the brown sign was for.
The neighbour and Ian tried to take her to the car.
Lucy slapped their arms. Her hands were slippery and her wrists were sore.
Why does it say brown, she shouted.
The men backed away from Lucy and then stood and looked at her.
The cat was dragging pieces of bread around the driveway.

The neighbour said, I'm going to the airport to pick up a boy whose name is Brown.
Lucy looked at the name. There were bits of paper on the driveway with Ian's name and her name written on them over and over.
She looked at her red hands.
Ian's hair was brown. His eyes were brown.
The cat was brown. The cat's bread was brown.
The blood on the driveway was brown.
Lucy went to Ian and put her head on his shoulder.
Take me to the hospital, she said. I'm too skinny and my wrists are sore.