missing you

Sonia

At the tram stop
white and blue
blue and white
clothes
sitting pretty beneath crispy
straw summered hair
positioned
as she was
against the poster
for a tropical island holiday
people with no depth
perception
might have imagined
she was a part
of the picturesque escape.

Michel

was bedevilled
by a Francophile name
on his mother’s insistence
with his father’s reluctance.
At school as a child
he protested, “Mick”
but now he was over it,
wore it like a tattoo and
was proud and nonchalant

(more French)

about it.

All the time unaware,
as indeed was his father,
that it was the name of his
mother’s first lover,
when she was
sixteen on exchange
in France.

At the party

In the back room,
awily bucket of ice
had wrapped its
chilly plastic legs
around slick elongated
beer bottles to
gently work their clothes off,
sliding and slipping around labels
too hot to be
worn in this weather.

Bright skinned
laughter
floated in from the yard
where the smokers
in the garden
let the fronds of the ferns
wilt and shrivel
underneath the blue cloud
of conversation
propelled by oversexed beers
and Malboro Lights.

Someone spilt a beer
On her dress

(Sonia’s)

the wild, profuse apologies of intoxication,
throw indecently, cheaply,
into the night’s heavy air
gave birth to the wind
on her back
sending her sailing
to the bathroom.

Exiting entering simultaneously
she and he
bumped heads.

She spilt her
own beer
on herself this time.

Even distracted by the spreading
amber stain
on her yellow singlet
Michel noticed the vibrations
of her open mouthed
laughing
and wondered what her name was.

Casually

Hey,

There was this girl

Here last night

Mate.

Singlet, yellow singlet.

Fucking Dave poured beer on

Her.

Short.

Kinda cute,

Really fucking cute.

Who was she?

(I stopped breathing

When I met her)

 

Melbourne

Is a tiny world
Of caffeinated
Concentric circles
Spinning in infinity
Pulling bodies
Ever deeper
Blissfully unaware
Of the vortex of lattes
And short black
Meetings
Just around the corner.
On the third table from the left

At Brunetti’s
Michel has a
Tiny ceramic plate balanced on his knee.
In the corner
On the counter
Sonia has a sketch book
Open
Peppered with scratchy
Jaunty writing –
Shotgun missives to coffees
Cafés and
Cornices
Filling the pages within.

The number 16

Can I take this seat?

His blue eyes are iridescent and
Liquid
Like the tube of
Acrylic paint
She stood on last week
Leaving an
Azure stain
On the rental carpet.

Um, sure.

He places himself on the
Seat
Heat radiating from his arm
Beside her he is
Swinging side to side with
The downward passage
Of Swanston St.

Weren’t you at Ruth’s party last week?