adam, by eve
pitted cheek,
igneous rock
whittled even by sobriety and a blade
shoulders,
freed from the heaviness of breast,
supporting unbuckled breadth
nipples lying low
with the shame of redundancy
callous fingertips
on masterful hands
muscles that bunch and loosen
as the mechanisms of masculine movement
run sturdy and smooth
fissures of skin,
folds of aged wood
commanded outwards by touch,
inwards by neglect
from eve –
madonna, whore, virgin
eve, watching.
Cobus
i was always in one piece
til i was 15 years old
small, so small you said
and i was
you always understood things
the opposite way
‘you see that, that’s the world’
you tried your best
to turn it around for me
but i wasn’t interested –
i cared only for what i had found:
the fine-drawn lines
round your eyes
and how they grew deeper
when i cried;
the way i shook
beneath your strength.
i was always
tearing the skin off things
and your patience
finally grew too tired to hold.
your words
now stamp their anger out
all over me
and i shrink back
in confusion, exhaustion,
my mind cracked
like an egg
on the rim of a bowl.
but i still dream of your sun-filtered curtains
fluttering across my face,
of watching their patterns on the wall . . .
i want to know something else.