Title: Sport 41: 2013

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, 2014, Wellington

Part of: Sport

Conditions of use

Share:

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Sport 41: 2013

Anna Livesey

page 126

Anna Livesey

Unclear Defense

Under the tree his biro on lined paper
scratched like a beard.

He was about to draw the hanged man
I would covet and lose forever.

He was about to become as slow and stupid as he would ever be,
his body beside me on the grass

as gauche as a teenage drinker.
We were never lovers though

I saw the inside of his mind shape itself—
the blunt, blue gawp of his thought

no more or less hospitable
than any other home I have stopped in.

page 127

Unspeaking Frankly

I have held silence these long times now,
since the holding of it must be done by someone.

There is no other object I have turned so much attention to,

no unkind juice greasing like gasoline,
no low-hung fruit or un-grasped embryo:
tiny bites grossable, (worrisome),
weighed against the arm-bundle (I am worrying).

When I was a girl I thought I would be one of the speakers.
My mouth moved like the environment from state to state.
Time fine-tuned the senses:
all things can be wrong.