FOR BROKEN OR WORSE
i.
Why Caustic Soda Could Save Our Marriage
Drainage is the major problem in our home,
not just how water lingers, but the backwash
that gargles the tone and tactics of last night’s row.
Unchecked, it leaves us ankle-deep in the faces
we keep washing off. It’s common knowledge
how stuff like that will build until it has me
down on my knees, scrubbing day in, day out.
ii.
Though Some Might Think it Pretty Bland
I’ve learnt to read the curdling of his mood
but not what turns his eyes to vinegar,
his mouth to chillies split and spilling seeds.
His sharpness often ends up in my eyes,
the eyes that he’d call delicate and sweet
or liken to a pot on simmer
when first we found a taste for one another.
iii.
Will the Congregation Be Upstanding
His body is a temple – so he tells me.
His arm’s a smoking censer and his fists
are two texts twisted into hellfire sermons.
He never states the god, but I know
that I must light the votive wick and see
it keeps a flame until the worship ends
in silence and tears
through which he’ll say he never thought
his invocations could carry such a clout.
iv.
Moving Towards the Psalms
It matters little who screamed and who sobbed.
It matters little how loud it was
and who, if anyone, heard it.
If there had been an echo, ploughing the noise
back into itself over and over
in preparation for further yield,
that might have mattered, but as things stand,
what matters is the waves of sound
moving forever towards
the psalms, hymns and songs of praise we’ve sung
him with those lips that cursed me,
with those same hands raised.
v.
A Perfect Drying Day
He watches me hang fire on the clothesline:
sheets of it that lick and sputter at the wind.
Innocent of heat, I lift and peg the flames
among the neighbours’ white and coloured washes.
Even when my hands and arms begin to blister
and an edge of fire is blown around my hair,
I don’t stop, just reach down into the pile,
unfold another furnace for the line.
Peering deep into the snap and fumble of the flames,
I note that they describe a face. It’s his.
Nonetheless – impossible to fathom the expression
or get the thing to look me in the eyes.
vi.
For Broken or Worse
The top deck of the bus clouds up with spent breath
condensed from the lungs of commuters to a curtain
over the world. I finger his name
among the beads and leave it
to weep street after street to let another
see how life looks through its shimmer and dissolve,
a patch of condensation on my clear and glassy soul.
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