everything is new again

I was obsessed with Mum’s bath pearls, their opulence and sheen

an 80’s standard.

I’ve since read they irritate the vulva, but I never made it that far as I would pinch them between my fingers

to watch one side burst

bursting is from a time before prequels, when kernels would spin like breakdancers

and this is where I’ve arrived,

so unaccustomed to hope, that it feels like nostalgia

I had strong chicks with wet hair tell me,

that it would eventually lessen

but I couldn’t see the way out. It was a season of Christian books,

with blindness and passivity the cover girls

I fantasised about the lightness of Southern belles,

Designing Women and Blanche Devereaux,

so unconcerned with the anxieties of being seen

they strode in pashminas

and got on with the show

but I was Lloyd Dobler, blood pissing from my nose, solemnly declaring that I was so good at loving someone,

I would make a career out of it

a character actor, whole and broad

has never fit into my mania

as I’ve fallen for the mime of Flake commercials, or the melancholy of shearers,

and Sunday’s too far away

a lie broke the spell and restored my sight,

her tales of how I had wronged her, mere paper cuts to my hobbled limbs. Forests of giving trees lay with their stumps pleading, and I started to dig small holes around them

my mum scoffed when I didn’t separate the seedlings and threw them in the earth as a clump,

as I’ve always been impatient

I know nothing of the desert

but I’ve known prickly women and spiky men,

wifebeaters and small-town mayors

and I know now, after all this time

I can make something out of nothing