Prishtinë

 

I’m waiting for dust to settle

in the cracks and grooves

of a grey-matter canopy,

to breathe the hearth-fire ashes

after a winter wake

for an old forgotten friend.

 

My hands and feet are cold,

transplants from a corpse

whose heart electrocuted once,

and since has ceased to bleed.

My nails are junk, stitched alabaster

into the roots and rotting sinews,

rewound to my stumpy bones,

and fastened with a screw.

 

I stacked up logs beside the fire.

They don’t light themselves or split.

The axe is keen, I honed it well,

in Manila, Belfast, Paris, Seoul.

 

I left my heart behind me in the Balkans

I think I dropped it in the snow

in January in Prishtinë

in the streets, or in the park.

 

I thought I saw it once,

on Lonsdale Street,

by Melbourne Central in July.

By then the dust had settled,

but by then I’d lost my nerve.

                                    - Melbourne

                                      July 2017

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