To play
Catch a face before it slides
from the plate. Screw in
an unblinking eye. Into one
corner hammer a tent peg
so a smile flaps but
holds good. Now shrug on
an amorphous coat. Hurry.
No. Panic won't make for fast-
buttoning; think reattaching
lead to dog, lock-picking,
wire-cutting. The fork-hand
easy but the truculent right:
a fist, a nest of magnets from
which you pry the index out
and fit it the length of that
silver spine, while those
around you spill the loaded die.
Coffee
I make a point of coffee lately
to slip the house or break
the day.
At the counter my first word
is the wrong foot.
But I make myself understood
and pocket change,
straightforwardly, natural.
A thank-you comes from distance.
I have my book and my strategies
and time.
The park
When I feel the day is turning,
I go — without a dog or child —
to pray and walk
the corridors of light and shade.
Bees are bumping along the hedges
and birdsong clutters
the upper air. The scrunch
of gravel, distracts, places me — here.
Aidan Coleman's poems have previously appeared in the Australian Literary Review, The Weekend Australian, The Age, Southerly, Island, Antipodes, The Warwick Review and Westerly. His new book of poems Asymmetry is published by Brandl & Schlesinger this year.