In my hard boots
I wandered into a field of thistles
crushing violet weeds,
bits of bricks and tiles,
broken glass from a house

I once knew. My mouth was wild,
foaming her name. I heard my child’s
moonless moaning and my house
bursting into a cake of flames.

After the rain, by the river-death,
I slept for a night in the shadow
of a broken boat. I piled humus
under my head and dreamt
of a throat

tangled in weed,
white as bone, my wife’s
goosefleshed thighs floating
in the swamp that sank
our river-home.

As I fold and unfold
a sleeping bag
by an alley and a railway track,
I brush away
the phantom of a man
drinking coffee and breaking bread
inside his daughter’s home.

Now, my hard boots hide
crooked toes,
crack bush burrows,
barks, twigs and lie
about the state of my soles.

First appeared in Mascara Literary Review – Issue Eleven – June 2012