joanne burns

delivery

i.
delve your soft nose
inside the couch grass
as if there’s an answer
or just something spectacular
beneath, beyond the wiles of
pluto; the grey limbs of the frangipani
tree might squint your eyesight if you try
to read them too closely & the wind’s library
full of sandy salt operas and skeltering portents

ii.
my name tumbled down the hill so often as you
called me to set the table i seek your voice in a
notional warmth, these tissues of nostalgia; i delivered
the gossip of the streets swift from the corner store:
sitting on bags of dark potatoes with a sharpened ear
while waiting to buy the cigarettes and cheddar, those
chthonic smells of the hessian sackcloth; the boredom
of taking the dolls to the beach down the driveway, you
could only pretend to be a child so many times -