The Voyeur and the Harpy

[Leanne]

Edit 13/9/11

you ask to see all of me

perhaps you imagine yourself as the breeze
whose fingers will stir colour from the lake
and paint it into clouds

silent in the silt rest twisted skeletons
of shopping trolleys, half a Datsun,
someone’s dream of bliss in a wrought-iron bedhead
and I, who will need more than the six seeds you offer
to slough this season’s skin

breezes do not reach the pipes that excrete
into algal blooms, red as the storm that rends
mother from child

you ask, but do not wish to discover
that here is no fire to purify,
only eternal decay
and another’s idea
of how to shape a life

Original

you ask to see all of me

perhaps you imagine yourself as the breeze
whose finger will stir colour from the brooding lake
and paint it into clouds

silent in the silt there are
twisted skeletons of shopping trolleys,
half a Datsun, someone’s dream of bliss in a wrought-iron bedhead
and I, who will need more than the six seeds you offer
to slough this season’s skin

breezes do not reach the pipes that breathe
excreta into algal blooms, red as the storm that rends
mother from child

you ask, but you
have no desire to discover
that here is no fire to purify,
only eternal decay
and someone else’s idea
of how to shape a life