Lovers and Choosers

I am tapping my body like a typewriter

I am playing my body like a piano

the tune is lost in my flesh

sounding a distant low hum of waves

but there still are tinkly bits

my stony toenails

my small nipples

the curling ends of my hair

•

my mother is sitting up in bed admonishing me

“by now you should have forgotten

all that” she says

“by now you should have put on a costume

that covers the worst parts

•

why don’t you get some man

to dye your hair to the colour of stuffed foxes?”

•

I type a note on yellow copy paper

•

“you who incline your head

like a girl listening

you whose eyes are green as

Viking seas:

•

there is too much distance

between us

I cannot shout back at you

words bitterly die in me”