Poem 11

Not written for anyone in particular – but the kissing is true enough, it was Kawaha Point on Lake Rotorua …

( I like the flood of Indian blue, breakfast in separate cities and the word fishtailing … )

Your First Marriage

There's a man revving a rotted Holden
outside all your dreams
                                           you're fading
off his skin like a trick tattoo
in the shower a flood
of Indian blue
                         both of you get up now and breakfast
              in separate cities 
he was a boy with a hot car and you had a hot heart
for him to blow on kissing in trees by a lake
until blood streaked your teeth

you'll have another an easier man
         for your middle age
and women friends for after that
but your youth ploughs on through the night
in the shape of a station wagon primer and rust
      left back door inoperable
and the boy you married first so inelegantly
snaps his shades down before the tinted sunset
plays an old tape wheel held
           in two fingers
           you gathered in
under his stupid reckless arm

                                                     out there somewhere
your first marriage still takes the corners too fast
fishtailing brake lights flashing and vanishing
in a summer night on a beach road