WINNER OF THE PHILIP PYKE MEMORIAL PRIZE 2024
I try being civilised over coffee.
These words are all that remain
—can remain. I worry about you,
and its variants;
my conversations with doctors,
blood tests and work;
all these sentences I have to write
which do not carry half as much weight,
more pounds than flesh.
Sentences about American confessionalism,
a vain oblique prodding of my own brain.
I do not hold the ear of my coffee cup;
I clasp it with both hands,
and my lips linger on the rim
as you speak.
This is barbaric, this acting,
this finding words that translate similarly,
compress sensibly old directness.
We are speaking a language we do not know,
more foreign than your mother tongue
on my neck.
I loved that kind of not understanding,
each double consonant like your breath:
pet names playing my spine, an accent
spilling like hot wax.
Translation would have been a bruise.
Now it is all I need.
