Girl with needy fingers
Graham Pope (University of South Australia, Australia)
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Shriven faced hope peers from behind a hat, in a choreography where the theme is eye-contact; with never seeing faces masking circumference of air, beyond which my words no longer fall: where the last defender of an unselfish motive flipped over thigh, length of arm-bone, long neck; languid looks at the things out of reach we desire; stretching indolently for the face of a taunting hope, the movement of invitation – the way flesh moves still after the trunk has stopped in motion, before expression lights up the face once again.
I switch on the bedside lamp and watch her sleeping. I look at her skin, at the faintest of blonde hairs reflecting light. I switch it off again.
I am tired of the in-between places: the midmornings, the getting into a lukewarm bath, the lulls that are not a lullaby; I am tired of my mendacity at her using me to deny her.
Have you pulled my eye enough, girl with the needy fingers? Well, have you?
Then return my tear behind eye-lid, ball and socket, and unstitch my thoughts from the place where my fingers think.
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Graham is a PhD candidate at the University of South Australia.
