Friday

Clean shelter and bounding dogs between the lake
and I for miles. A queen in the fresh mountain air,
up above furrows and vines arranged in perfect
portions, a full-fat exercise book of juicy maths.

Not a mountain person with this pouch, a little twinge
in the back of the knees, cold-stuck in coffee, art,
watching, don’t care if you’re better than me, it’s nice
here. The air is rarefied and sends me dreams of

dead babies, a party at which I am weightless as a
ballerina. I rot in the pool like a lily pad, dangerous
underwater as a sister. The unicorn has popped,
grappled in fabulous rodeo, the horn gone down.

Not my Dad. I am on holiday and keep working
to fill up the silence. We hear a story about a
bricklayer whose fingers stuck fast in a pulley,
crow hard at absurdity, dress light.