Tessa Berring

 

 

I’m Just As Surprised

 

I’m just as surprised as you are. You with your ‘Wow, Wow, Wow’. I mean I don’t mean to talk about sex. But the climate, you know, and the way people listen. How everyone is worried about the body they are in, or they are not in. If I say ‘pillar’, ‘bell’, or ‘lemonade’, out loud to a hushed up room, will it evince desire? (The same as when you said ‘blousy flower’ in the lowest dip of the sand dune). Longing leaks so easily, I mean we all know that – it goes without saying. Little pillars of  frozen salt. A folded paper gosling. What are you thinking about? (‘Wow, Wow, Wow’) That this is a seductive poem? It isn’t, you know. It is cold as a rose – the fingered kind, with a spray on scent. I’m tired of threading objects onto thin flexible wire. Metaphors bore me and I know I’ve changed the subject. At least we’re still talking, and can joke a bit about life. How it yowls it’s way to the world then is caught, red handed. Well of course touch happens, say the people in blue gloves. It is very hard to see in the dark.