Kathleen Bleakley

Waterspray

I remember us
cycling home from college
summertime, through sprinklers
& back uphill
indian cotton shirts
plastered to our backs
sweat beads on your forehead

lolling in the
warm waters
of your family pool
never cool enough

At the hotel
party
everyone spraying champagne
the cork popped
in mid-air
you dived
into the pool
long black dress
fanning out like wings
of a giant butterfly

I remember at the ward
watching you
in the glass tank
spinning your red sarrong
around & around yourself
spraying me
with your corkscrew hair
shouting they woudn't give me a towel

walking barefoot through the snow

1. on the highest peak we found stillness.

it was later, when we were descending, the wind shifted, cloud came over you. the sunny
face didn't last as long as it took us to climb back down.

2. so much, you asked of me: be with me, long days, long term, be mine, fill me, make me whole, you said i am hollow. hollow in the valleys, winds swept the snow, we walked through vastness, between rock crevices, your face fell in on you/ you became angry angrier with each step...

we were descending. i refused to give in to your demands, be with you &
you alone. refused not relented - you were relentless, keeping pace with me down the mountain. the snow wouldn't melt , we were almost there: you afraid, unwilling to go down the chairlift until i promised to be with no other. you refused to believe that this is where i stood at that very stone.

that i would go down alone, your cry no echoed in snow

3. the wind stung the tears frozen on my face. i faced into the wind.

you broke a branch, wrote my initials across the ski slope.

4. later, we were moving in a car, you asked did you see up there? no? not even your own name moves you to look out the window, you curled up in the corner, would not be moved.

5. we were moving in a car, autumn leaves held in the air, they did not fall. we were passing through a row of golden poplars. i photographed them, stepped out of the car, filled my lungs with the scent of winter.

Beveridge, Judith
Bleakley, Kathleen
Boyd, Allan
Brennan, Michael
Burns, Joanne
Cameron, Lainie
Cassidy, Bonnie
Chang, Jessica
Clarke, John
Cooke, Stuart
Crane, Michael
Dechian, Sonja
Doran, Ben
Doupe, Juliana
Drewitt, Andy
Dyson, Mia
Elson, Gerard
Ferney, Liam
Garrard, Phillipa
Gibian, Jane
Greagen, Clint
Hawkins, Brian
Hickey, Kelly-Lee
Hier, Michael
Higgs, Ashley
Jelfs, Bradley
Jenkins, Gareth
Johnson, Heather Taylor
Jones, Jill
Kefala, Antigone
Keily, Tom
Knox, Elena
Locke, Kate
Lowe, Justin
Mackie, Brendan
Mann, Paddy
Messiah, Eytan
Minter, Peter
Mitchell, Paul
Morganics
Narkiewicz, Katrine
Nicholson, Anna Kerdijk
Nixon, Jenni
Oliver, Stephen
Paine, Juliet
Prater, David
Purchess, Andew
Robbins, Rachel
Scott, Ryan
Smart, Steve
Sinclair, Tim
Sometimes, Alicia
Stavanger, David
Stuart, James
Tsaloumas, Dimitris
Walter, Lesley
Webster, Ben
West, John
Westbury, Deb
Wicks, Les
Winch, Ben