3 Poems
Circulars
Upstairs, the one legged man taps on the floor
and I think it is someone knocking at our door.
Sometimes when I am lying in bed
I can hear him in the toilet.
Our flats are laid out backward.
His lounge is above my bedroom,
his bedroom below our lounge.
The kitchens are in completely different places.
Once, Jackson said he could hear the
one legged man peeing while he was peeing.
The one legged man leaves his newspapers on the footpath
and his junk mail in the mailbox.
We bring his junk mail down to him
and put it on his barbecue,
but it just ends up blowing around
on our steps and getting caught out in the rain.
The one legged man stays home a lot.
He watches a lot of movies and
gets his food delivered from Countdown.
The one legged man keeps his door open
but I’ve only seen him once.
The day we moved in,
I knocked on his door frame.
He came out and introduced himself.
He said he likes to play music
and we should tell him off if it gets too loud.
The one legged man’s music is never too loud
but it’s not enjoyable either.
The one legged man has two cats.
They are both incredibly shy.
One of them accepts pats
but the other one will hide under the house
if he sees you coming.
One time, I sat down on the couch
and the shy cat shot out from behind it
and ran out the door.
The one legged man seems nice enough.
We borrowed his can opener once.
</br></br></br>
House
I tie a thread around my ankles</br> and lower my body down</br> beneath the deck</br> to watch the cats with human faces</br> clean themselves in the half-light</br> of their homes.</br></br> A zeppelin disguised as a kereru</br> propels itself magnificently</br> through the stratosphere overhead</br> and my person-eyes are transfixed</br> by the person-eyes in front of mine,</br> set in their frame of orange fur.</br></br> How far back does the person go,</br> I wonder –</br> as in, are they person-brains or cat-brains</br> living inside?</br></br> Their homes are so clean,</br> pitched roofs and whitewashed boards</br> fitted snug to the land,</br> the gentle roll of the hill.</br> It is hard to hold onto them,</br> hard to keep sight of their scale</br> as we tap dance on the lino </br> above their heads.
</br></br></br>
Houseplants
Trees march down the window </br> panes </br> of all the apartment buildings</br> in straight diagonal lines.</br></br> A woman peers through the plants</br> in her window</br> and smiles as you pass.</br></br> Smile back.</br></br> A foot appears in the gutter,</br> lonely,</br> pierced by a metal rod.</br></br> Pick it up and </br> place it in your bag.