(Written for Alexander in 2010, originally published in the UTS Writers’ Anthology.)
This is dropping anchor in the world:
both more prosaic and lovelier
than all the ghost years I spent flickering
away and inwards, behind glass
and holding back my hands. Take one! Sink
your teeth into the meat of me.
When sugar water runs across your lip
and stings the little deserts underneath your tongue,
you will be tasting as I taste.
For hours at a time I can’t remember
the vernacular of fruit. I’m shrunk, I am
tongue-blind. A frightened child.
This is the way it always was. Slowly
I fade back in, as I have faded bit by bit
throughout: and out, and in, and out. You
beachhead mine, are something to hang on to.
Let me dare someday to press in bruises, wait
until I’m not afraid to leave a mark.
Because time passes, and my terror. Every year
I’ve tallied up more solid. Bright cold vertigo
eyes level with horizon, yielding earth,
a feeling that my body is attached
to my body. Now, your body
constantly reminding me of this.
My hands do not pass through
your skin. You’re there. You’re
there, and I for one long moment
sliding into moment
also am there. Wanting
and being allowed to want, looking
and being allowed to look. I need
to floss my teeth. I have been eating oranges.
The Present Tenser 