Sayonara, and: Blue Door, and: The Tattooist

Sayonara

    And once I had a loverwho when we slept lay his heavy armacross my body to trap me in his coverswho was older    but loved me quickand eager as a boy    his hot hands duginto my hips or two fingers hookedbetween my lips    who looked a littlelike my father    China in his face    but tallertougher    slabs of muscle on his legsand spidery hair    two patches on his thighswhere jeans had rubbed him bare    whohad an airy room in a house of strangersa shelf of tattered paperbacks    his bedpushed in the corner by the windowwhere a streetlamp glowed    who played meSayonara on his stereo or Dirty Old Townsongs to sing to songs to drink towho drank and drank and dranklager    cider    nips of vodka from a flaskhe carried on the football stands whosometimes couldn't stop the shakingof a teaspoon in his hand    whothe morning-after smelt of milk gone sourwho raced me in a roofless silver car upand down the motorways    on country lanesthe hot sun blistering my shoulderswho on muggy summer afternoonsstood behind me    pressed my face against a wall    against a door mosquitoeshumming in my ears    who pushed himselfin every corridor who left mealways wanting more who left mefor another and even when I wrotea begging letter and dyed my hairher same dark colour    wouldn't take me back

Blue Door

In the dream, the phone in my bagtells me my baby is crying.I am somewhere in a city,riding the night-train.

The phone flashes in my hand,the train slows to a halt.I see my baby in her cot,her face wet, a red knot.

In the dream, I yank openthe carriage doors,I run along the tracks.Down steps. It is America—

a stoplight blinks a white man,the streets are pale and wide.I turn each corner, crazy.Which house has my baby?

In the dream, I push opena tall blue door. Everythinginside the way I left itbefore—a pool of dresses

on the floor, the drawersspilt open, jazz songson the radio. My baby criesupstairs, in a far corner.

I lie her down to change her,pull on green tights, a corduroy dress.Only when I'm done, do I feelthese clothes are soaking wet.

Outside, two car doors slam.I hold my baby at the window.She cries. I sing. We watch themcoming up the path.

The Tattooist

The white bone lettering spelt Thai Tattooon black cloth, strung above a balcony,and there was the Tattooist with his statue

of Ganesha—first thing I saw, arriving queasyfrom the lurching mountain bus, from dreamsa thousand pairs of hands were touching me.

I was tired of travelling, its drab regimesof tuk-tuks and the murky transient bedsbelow their ghostly nets, the high-pitched hums

of blood flies. I told the Tattooist this—he saidhe'd motor-biked through Russia, Pakistanand up the Himalayas and hadn't moved

in years. Most afternoons he'd sit and turnhis face towards the Pir Panjal hills,Buddha-still, unless his bell was rung

by backpackers demanding Maori skullsor Celtic oak trees inked across a bicepor a thigh—then he'd talk of sacred needles,

the sacred dye, his long apprenticeshipto monks. I took the room by his, top-notch,the proprietor said, which meant no fleas, a sink,

clean sheets, the slatted blinds through which I watchedthe Tattooist bathe, his body skeletalin a white sarong, untying his gothic swatch

of hair below a gushing tap, spectralagainst the white chameleons and snow crowns.At home, he would have been suburban, shameful,

an outdated metalhead, but on my ownaway, I wanted him, the way I wanteda tattoo, having never wanted one.

I sketched on card three flowers, each petal sculpted...