Russian Caravan Tea

Don't know why but I'm feeling so sad
said the walkman.

We had dangled its tiny earpiece
over the mouth of a plastic champagne flute

this was our stereo
the stillness of the wooden caravan.

I long to try something I've never had
Billie Holiday was singing

and we could hear her well enough
under the silent stars.

– 106 –

Once you had died and we had done those things—
visited the apricot room

and smoked our mouths to hot
caves—I went under the knife.

The anaesthetic took me down
and surgeons pulled the very eyes from my head.

When I came to the world was in the wrong place
and the wrong place was me.

In a photograph you are eating muesli
with your feet in the water of the Hokianga.

I stood behind with the camera
called your name, Mark

look back, I said
look back over your shoulder.