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published
in collection Weeks, 2007,
Urban Fox Press,
ISBN 1-905522-21-5
Safe Harbour
She
learned it early, that smile,
used
the world over
to
placate and to persuade.
She
exercised it each morning,
quietened
her children,
schooled
her husband to good behaviour,
sent
it before her each evening
into
a room of laughing men,
taught
it to earn tips at the bar,
let
it spread from her mouth
to
raised cheeks and tightened jaw,
coloured
her talk with whites and reds,
employed
it carelessly,
allowed
it to play with a strand of hair,
look
twice at the stranger at the corner table,
until
insatiable nights
wiped
it from her perfected face
and
stole it from her eyes
2
So
tonight
all
the light
is
robbed from her eyes
and
the smile
once
found with ease
when
lighting our candle
takes
ten seconds to compose
as
she walks to our table
from
the back room.
Her
long peppered summer
has
fetched up in August
weary
as winter,
and
now she must keep on walking
through
an unbreakable dream
that
brings no escaping
3
Like
the dream
you’ve
forgotten by morning
but
doesn’t forget you,
your
son dead, your father dying again,
the
nightmare
that
lies heavy behind eyes
that
cloud for hours despite sunshine,
lamplight
or even awakened love,
so
the voice on the phone that evening
cannot
be believed, the postcard
from
the island beach in Thailand,
date
smudged, must have been censored,
the
e-mail confirming her arrival
forged,
and the only thing
that
can burn off the doubt
is
another half-remembered dream,
unwilled,
involuntary, but this time light
4
As
the weightless catamaran
that
straddles the countless fires
extinguishing
and lighting the warm sea
on
a risen morning
resolved
to dazzle eyes
and
burn off all effects of clouds
while
the brief wakes of yachts
break
cover to take their chance
and
slake untethered restlessness
unsheeted
at the exhausted wind
muffled
engines screwing to the sun
as
crews float between lives
5
Like
us upon the salt of life,
swimming
on the writhing sea
bathing
in the showered sun
hugging
shade beneath the pines,
purged
of form, reduced to line
so
recognition sheds disguise,
and
sparrows peck at sparrow dunes
and
sand flies fly across the sand,
and
we follow the directions
concealed
from the border guards
who
only mistake them for maps
painted
on glass quicksilvered by death,
and
here we’ll find our way
while
pedalos pedal families of five
lilos
lie low in the afternoon
and
the day glows in dayglows,
navigate
a route through clouds
and
imagine ourselves to light
until
we settle to the smiles
that
trade in nothing but themselves.
Michael Curtis
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