Your Kisses
When you moved
a cat blew down Watkin Street
crumpled up like a newspaper.
At first you sent me short notes
simple illustrations of affection I kept those
then your kisses began
arriving in the mail I remember the first one In the lounge room
I was standing in a square
of sunlit carpet
when it came.
Your lips leapt out to kiss me
just like that You weren’t there
just the unabashed lips It wasn’t embarrassing,
it was your kiss.
After that
I stopped using the paper knife It seemed too dangerous
and I never knew what would
come in the mail anymore.
You played tricks with me A long serious cuddle came
in a weighty parcel
that looked like
a rejected manuscript That was a surprise.
Once I was lying in a hammock
in the backyard
wanting to be in a warmer place
with a better view
when a quick passionate kiss
came disguised as the phone bill I’d thought it was a reminder notice It just disappeared into the air
or up my nostril.
Eventually the postie caught on Just seeing him embarrassed me To avoid him
I’d have a bath
about that time of day
but then he started
delivering them to me
in the bathtub.
He liked to see the look on my face It was a bit of a giggle for him He’d been your postman too
when you’d lived here I recall
once he’d been curious
and just taken a peak Your teeth must have snapped
the warning marks onto his nose.
Naturally everyone was jealous of me The mailbox in the front yard
overflowed with affection Gradually your tokens
came to outnumber all the other
items of mail.
I had to take drugs
to stay up late at night
to finish my correspondence.
It was alright
being a local spectacle for a while
but when the reporters
started waiting for me
queueing at the garden gate
and even following the postie around
you went into hiding You couldn’t stand the attention
and I couldn’t blame you.
Eyes lowered in the morning
and lonely in my office cage
I’d invent disabilities for myself Then our banning orders came We flinched,
stuck in our suburbs
but we kept to them.
We made a secret rendezvous
a pick-up point Your messenger would speed past the park
in a cute little Fiat,
a red Fiat convertible She’d toss the parcel over her shoulder
like a paper boy Anxiously I’d try to catch it
between my teeth Sometimes the parcel
bounced off my head
boing boing
Sated I’d sit in my office
or someone else’s,
wimp around
wait for your telex Bushfires would follow me all the way home
fogging my windscreen.
In a dawn raid
police found our lips together The constable had a smirk
turned away,
the sergeant kept a serious look,
paused waiting for our lips to part
before making an arrest
politely.
There was a garden
and a garden keeper’s house,
a hill that lovers tumble down The harbour was walled right round the bay In exile I kept a rude hut
thatched of brick and iron
in the city From the bars of my cell
I could haul myself up to the light
just see the housetops and the spires
and birds haiku across a valley
on the first day of spring.
Finally your messenger came again,
your errand in her arm outstretched the note confused me
an expanse of page
trees and embankments :
pictures of a gold rush.
I could pull rabbits out of my hat
but today I should not think of the past I should fix all the things in my room
that have stopped working.
And right now
listening to the dull rattle of my voice
and the wind whistling across the tops
of the milk bottles I’m carrying
I’m falling into a deep sleep,
a trance where life becomes one long anecdote
and when I come out of the shop
it’s raining
raining kisses
and the road and the railtracks
and the buildings I
are all covered
with the lipstickless smudge marks
of your kisses
and everything is wilting with one sigh.
The Invisibility Cream
Let me explain
about the invisibility cream It has lots of applications It’s good for people
who don’t want to be seen in public,
for kids who want to get at
their Christmas presents early
and pilots bailing out
over enemy territory It’s good for thieves and armies
and rocket ships and spies It’s good for anyone
who wants to be where
they’re not supposed to be It’s good for juntas about to fall
in South America And it’s good for people
who can’t stop fucking
but who have to go out
and do things.
With the invisibility cream
you can have sex
in every room
of anyone’s house
even in front of the children
or the television.
With the invisibility cream
you don’t have to worry
about concession passes You can catch buses for free You have to mind your step
because you can’t see where it is You can travel up and down the lifts
in big buildings in the city.
You can make as much noise as you like People will be too scared to say a thing You can sit in on the board meetings
of huge corporations You can make points of order,
dissents out of thin air.
With the invisibility cream
you can go to a press conference
and sit on the Premier’s knee,
more than naked You can nibble his ears
and tickle him,
nuzzle up and whisper to him Call him ‘Santa Claus’ and ‘Pumpkin’
in front of all those cameras He won’t let on you’re there.
But you don’t have to do any of these things With the invisibility cream
you can lie in bed and massage each other,
you can rub out just a bit at a time You can remove unsightly moles,
unwanted flab, you can turn legs into telescopes.
With the invisibility cream
sometimes you will feel like there’s nobody there Like your bodies have gone off on holidays together
and left you there to talk about it.
