Summer's End

At Summer's end
you are a miracle
sleeping on my shoulder
we are dying and dancing
in the soft light
of Autumn

an ocean of sea and salt
I lick the salt
from your chest
we have dissolved
our heavy limbs
climbing like
grapevines

we can be anything
the roar of the sea
the calm dream of death
I am flooded
and complete
at the same time

The Magnolia Tree

After a year of making changes

I’ve thrown out old clothes

  crockery

    and judgements

screamed at my reflection

in the mirror

sat with myself

for the first time

and had a conversation 

realised I’m not bad
to talk to

contemplated

what it means to be 50

accepted mortality

understood
what it means to die

reclaimed my sexuality
revisited my 16 year old self

who never really left

watched the wind pass through

the magnolia tree

witnessed their flowers scorch

in the summer sun

only to rebloom again

Restart

You are watching me
filling me

I can almost hear you breathe
you're that close
and everything starts to float before
I'm unsettled again

you remind me of things past
of a happier place

I want everything behind us
where the sun fills the dark spaces
that left us empty

Laneway meditation

Colour is returning
where winter had left bare
leaving only a tinge
of leggy shaped branches
and heavy mist

but I don't mind the dark
or the deep
it gives me comfort
knowing that life still exists
within that space

there's a cloud on
the horizon
when I look at it, I think of you
it has your shape

if I could touch it
I'm sure it would retract, back
into the sun
and return to the
intangible twilight

Day in town

Driving around Collingwood
retracing your time spent
as a young man
we found ourselves at
Studley Park Boathouse

we both had memories
of the place
with thirty years
between us

row boats     still
along Yarra's edge
sunlight
catching
in the afternoon

I wonder how many people
have sat there
opening their hearts
sharing stories

Emotions run deep

like wild fire through her veins

a phoenix reborn

Fearless

I used to think I was too much
my heart
too big
too filled, wanting
or at times too small

and then I realised

it isn't easy to love a woman like me
someone who feels so deeply, so intense
it must be frightening

to love me is to be brave
and not everyone
is strong

(Poem from My Beautiful Scars)