Rivering: The Poetry of Daphne Marlatt

“Two women in a birth”

“Two women in a birth” what is there between them? in this in. desire in their desire room in their room somebody in the body of not in but in the doubling of. mise en abyme. out in the outback we are in the desert then or the abandoned. desert of ice of love of stolen dreams desert of the heart. but what if the boundary goes walking? refuses to be that place the hero enters with his gold his drums his caravans – o the desert generals the desert fathers the desert rats the desert revolution. (we saw hoofprints of camels and never camels but scrub and many varieties of: we stood in the middle of nothing and it was full. bleak obstacleboundary -space to and for his adventures, ground to his figure and exploits, grave-cave she has rolled over in all that red dust (the year is endless here) given herself a shake and birthed into subject. the inconceivable doubling herself into life no slouchbacked beast (even double humped) heading for Bethlehem but the doubling of ‘woman’ into hundreds camped in the middle of desert outside Pine Gap’s nuclear base, and the voice of the desert is the sound of their singing out their anger relentless and slow as dunes walking. we are off the train in order to be in the desert no longer the object of exchange but she-and-she-who-issinging (as the women have always sung) this body my (d)welling place, unearthed. 26 / Rivering ...