Drunk again and alone
listening to Warren Zevon on
a tinny transistor gifted by the previous cadaver
a slither of a 9-volt battery life
keeps me alive.
The moon has turned
all the clouds
into white whales thrashing
through the upturned sea
that pours through cracks
fills in spaces shifting parables
a piano solo like footsteps
on shingle disappears into mountains
after fire, after rain, after you left.
Another cigarette
another shot
another song
another line
another hour
passes
Memories run in veins along the grain
of the knotted macrocarpa floors
how your face is distorted
your eyes the colour of wind
your mouth a blood orange
fallen from a tree in Madrid.
If you placed two lines
of poetry in a forest
and if I walked forever
through kauri and kahikatea trees
my feet rotting into earth
my hair a knitted garment
for an empty body
I may, eventually, find the note
and read those lines that say
how much how very much
you loved me. Once.
