Erin McFadyen
Alone in bed,
and you love it — feeling your
hot breath steam from the hollow of your mouth
to your
clavicle,
navel,
glistening, the button on your jeans like a peach pip —
listening to the pigeons
slide slick
down the barrel of the sky.
You s’pose you should
feel bad about
this unnatural circling south in the southern winter,
stealing
yourself well away
from those you must love,
hoarding warmth
for yourself.
Outside, a tram slips
out of its stop.
You picture your
face in its pseudo-glass,
rippling cheeks, the mouth not rippling,
the hot breath pools round
the glottis,
soft palate,
the tongue,
and you love it —
gripping this choice not to smile
hard from bed, where you
lay really
eerily still,
sticking your mind to
the walls of your skull,
slipping your fingers through
the guilt and the gooey mass
of this barrel of yourself,
this bare sky.
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Erin McFadyen has a background in performance and written-text poetry. Her work has appeared in Men In This Town, Sibyl, the University of Sydney Student Anthology, and Hermes, where she is currently undertaking an editorial role. She has particular interests in lyric poetry, poetry of place, and the voices of women’s experience.
