March Heatwave

by Jane Downing

I’ve been noticing women’s toes. The neighbour’s lawn is a badly cooked naan bread. Someone should invent the opposite of a hot water bottle. We no longer have the right to colours. It is reflex to recoil from sour milk. I can’t remember his face: I would know it instantly. Silence like the dead air over the radio when the apprentice pushes the wrong button. Toss, tosser, tossest. Caught between reason and raison d’être. At what temperature is nakedness the answer… or is it always a question? I think of myself as a peccable woman. Do-si-do turn to your partner. Turn a cold shoulder, if you only could. Need to find a documented instance of pegs melting on the line. Skin parches under sweat. Mad as a March hare. March as a mad hair. American politics at 3 am must be in the small print of Dante. The smell of rot can rot. Edges are for falling over. Push me. Turn the wine back to water. The Joker laughs, Why so de-lerious? The crow cannot finish his last caw.

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And Coast

by Jane Downing

First you have to pass through the trees

At night in the headlights they frame urban

legends of escaped hook-handed criminals

Mist swirls

Then the forest is felled by open sky

but you cannot yet see the beach

Beach houses yes, of wood & outside stairs & verandahs

Up there: the views

But still you have to walk and crunch the grass

watched by a mob of kangaroos so habituated

they just as likely phoned-out for pizza

Walk on by

Finally, sand amongst the moons of marsupial poo

Ahead water inks the picture-perfect sweep

The big moon gilds the peaks and crests

To the horizon

You could stop where the fishermen cast their lines

The cold will bite your ankles, slap you back

You could stop or dredge abrading toes in wet sand

Or dive

And coast

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