The granite circle crowns dry grass

beneath the violet field of night,

 

he cups my cheek and strokes my hair

he says is like his mother’s

 

in the bedside album,

bushland bride before his father

 

echoing, echoing,

the stones are teeth in the land

 

cobwebbed by his chaos long ago,

concealed cracks turned crystalline,

 

they fear the mirror face I carry now,

the mother’s body with the father’s mind.

 

He pushes deep and liquid rushes out,

he leads me docile to the shower and

 

kneels to clean my legs,

his tenderness a courtyard with a hidden latch.

 

I don’t deserve this kindness,

seeping, a soft punctured bug

 

I’m shackled by the sweetness

as the water bends between us

 

and dead grass shivers at my feet.

The droplets cannot reach it.

 

His genitals touch mine and brush my thigh,

“Thank you.” “For what?” He pulls me in,

 

“For being there.”

The stars glare down.

 

I’m naked, mute

sitting on the edge facing away.

 

I bump the frame, apologise,

from the bed he says,

 

“It’s you.”

He qualifies,

 

 

“It could be you, it looks like you,”

her hair skin nipples all like mine,

 

a joke that he can later crack as punishment.

I lie prostrate.

 

Behind me he looks up at scattered stars,

midnight lakes

 

he could get lost in,

die beside,

 

ideals

that promise double joy,

 

I swum there once,

a brilliant shard that slipped into his eye.

 

At my back the blade refracts. I feel the rush.

Hand clamped on my mouth, arm wrapped

 

over breasts he thrusts forward,

upward, split wide

 

I weep.