i) LAUNDRY
tangled women
hang laundry
on lines
that join their houses
this one
washed dark colours
jeans caught like flies
wet legs dangling
from her sun-spun web
another had bad luck
mixed in red
it ran and runs now
trickles from her bloodbath
a faint pulse
a bloodline
one's hands
drip sequins
string lights from the pulley
she crowds the line
clothes hang by themselves
it's magic
a tightrope
the fourth dreams white
uses starch
in boiled water
suggests order
and an absence of germs
by an obvious absence of underwear
this one pins blue
lowers the sky
for her children
pretends she's in a garden
and this yellow scarf
is a kite
see how it plays with the wind
ii)
LAUNDERED
tangled women
hang
on lines
join
this one
dark
like flies
dangling
another
in red
now
her bloodbath
a faint
bloodline
one's hands
drip
from the pulley
hang by themselves
the fourth dreams
boiled water
an absence of germs
one pins blue
sky
her children
in
with the wind
iii)
TANGLED
women
hang
on lines
like flies
dangling
red
a faint
bloodline
drip
from the pulley
absence
blue
children
in
the wind
Movies
(FOR N.V M)
The shadows of knives, kisses, nooses,
tendrils of hair and crosses
have come to mean more
are more desired and feared
than the real things.
A trick of cinematography
or, say, history
has made light and non-tight
dapple the mind.
Everywhere we look is loss
in silhouette.
Shapes on the ground explain
our cringing from the unseen sky.
A bird overhead may be a baseball
or a brick, falling.
These shadows impress
death on the living.
The swinging man, his feet
if we see them we know
they are someone else
but a shadow could be anyone
who got in the way of the sun.
