High dependency

Such serenity could never be mine. Unhurried
above the crook of my arm, she pressures, adjusts
tourniquets, and the weather outside, extreme
as it is, ceases to be a topic of conversation.

So I will not tell her about the Yellowstone day
when the sky turned to slate and olivine and
lignite, speared down lodge-pole pines, reckless
between us and skittering bob-tailed elk.

I do not mention the North Pacific swell that
swept through Malibu’s finest gold-starred
real estate, past surfers high at Topanga Point,
out across incredulous Santa Monica Bay.

She knows I know the calculations. Unwritten
numbers stutter, roll, accumulate, pause. The plots,
the progress? “OK,” she hushes. “They’re good,
very good.” My eyes shift elsewhere, disengage,

consider on a scale from one to ten: ocean sailing,
scuba diving, hang gliders; uncles, great-aunts,
rarely seen cousins; ice-cream, spaghetti, scones;
bananas, refried beans; Port Adelaide, the 36ers;

unions, the Murdoch Press; mining the Pilbara,
Kimberleys, Cape York Peninsula; sisters, sisters;
double-decker buses, trains (diesel, electric, steam);
sleep; rosé, shiraz; paracetamol, aspirin, morphine.

My veins expand, contract, meet her flow, pulse.
She wraps me with fine merino wool, aluminium
foil, fox skin, prepares plain and purl, cross stitch,
running stitch, applies the fine art of needlecraft.

There is warmth and I immerse in hum, footstep,
the coil, counter coil, coil around my breath hold.
Idle beyond my fingertips, forensic deconstruction,
her voiceprint, this transitory metamorphosis.

Soon enough, we will drive away, hard on bitumen
and basalt; she will fold back pristine sheets, begin
an open chart; you will estimate chances of rainfall,
recall lemons, limes, hand me the front door keys.