We are going

to the truck.

I have slung

my bumbag round my hips

and suddenly

it feels like an arm draped round

for a moment I expect

a niceness to be

in this, when suddenly

I feel angry enough to spit, which I do not do

thoughts, snap off, snap off, snap off

Like weeds without the root

irritation mounts

the day is wrong

my body is wrong

I cant walk properly because

my belly is so bloated I feel

like a lump with limbs

hanging off weak half running half falling legs

giving in, out, way

or just giving

 

–

they get out the truck.

I do a 3 point

turn and go

back up the drive to where he has decided

we leave it now so squirrels

will not store their black walnuts in the engine

last week we removed 20 or so

and my hand still feels odd from crushing

park. Lurch

 

I am very sad.

I feel desperate.

I am thinking,

what have I to show, what have I to keep?

An empty belly underneath-

the hungry shame of my demanding

I am sitting in the truck facing

the road with the door open.

How convenient and how

shamefully lazy to be both

inside and outside in such a fruitless

way but I am showing

no signs of moving and I start to find

try to find a way that I can own it and take it with me

Make something! Make something!

It has started to rain lightly.

The field to my left has dramatic

clouds in its sky towards sunset

glare, like the moment a mirror

catches your eye in its lightline, loss

multiplies like a virus

in the warm folds of my insides,

relishing perfect conditions

making a gape

 

all I can think of is lost time, how

the thief is above law, is law

 

and how I would like to have a car with a little

fold out writing table in the passenger seat

which i'd slide into after driving

to the lake or the ocean, or the top of a hill or

a mountain, or a forest

and I would have, also

a little teapot and some contrivance

for heating water, and a very thin rimmed

tea mug, to drink my tea from

or two. Sometimes

I might have someone

sitting

in that car, in that place

with me-

(who? It is him again)

 

closure is as closure does.

Though, now he does

talk to me more haltingly and I

am more dark and condensed, different too

from how old lovers ought to be-the

blonde

of you, and expectation sits, and my hope;

with loose earth and in a rush,

buried but

 

alive

 

if I

could invite you in

to a real thing that is mine, me

a car in which I keep

fine china cups, flagroot to chew, a pouch of

oolong tea;

if I could offer you

something to know me through;

 

 

Might I then feel equal to you, real man with skin that sweats;

a woman of means.

 

Adequate to the task of having you;

equal to dreams?

 

Will I ever be a dynamic woman?

I know I am strong, but more

like a stone or a mountain.

When I see the silver

rings on my fingers I think

perhaps

I am freer than I realise, and then

I think about how I should really

pierce my right ear, all along the curve

sew it in with a stream of silver, perhaps

my joints will move more freely then.

Other times I see those silver rings on my finger

I think, hahahaha, what do I look like compared

to what I am? Eventually

the insides wear down the out. I wonder how

far I have gone to looking

who I am.

​

​

- Dynamic Woman