Tuesday night, & The Pool by Helena Bryony Parker
Tuesday night,
in the soft mouth of your room.
Our bodies shimmer beyond their outlines.
From the bathroom
the jubilant chaos of your sister bathing her child.
This holy project of malleable bodies.
Between my fingers ooze ribbons of clay
as I squeeze and drag. Bone dry,
I am undermined by photographs of my mother at 25.
I told you this, and we clung shoulders.
Outside the dusk was a lone salmon,
swimming in pink like recent wounds.
You roll over in the night.
I look at you.
Moonlight spills like soup over your face.
Heavy with dreams.
Graphite hair and
a gaping mouth.
I am buoyed above sleep by the temptation of new lives.
The Pool
Coloured milk spilt
over the surface of the sunset
reflects in the children's swimming pool.
The echo of the children’s laughter
dances atop the still water.
From my view, high up and before a window,
the pool is quelled by the soft arms of early evening.
The light won’t last long.
I know my hands hold loosely
all that they have ever held.
But I see shivering pearls of sunlight
tremor weightlessly across the pool.
They sink quietly like comets in a far away sky.
When night comes I am alone, I get up from my seat.
It lays empty until the morning.
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