BY ISI UNIKOWSKI

 

the little paper aeroplanes of your sleep

I have witnessed and rehearsed your things’

slender defection, as if the moon’s paparazzi flash

through the blinds made negatives

of our lives’ tiny Penates:

 

that white square

that will fall if the door handle turns

is not a blouse

 

that long, smooth box

left too close to the edge

not your glasses case

 

rockpools over which I stumble

toward morning’s long shore

not your shoes

 

a tray opens its hand, its unkempt premises

no longer able to hold the sift

of diffident, indifferent years.

 

No matter how slowly I move amongst them

my Balinese dance between furniture, I betray

their fidelity, their regret for us, our hard edges

at my touch their banked life awakens

from starlight’s gilt album.

 

Isi Unikowski is a Canberran poet who has been published both in Australia and overseas.

 

Cemetery votive box, seen through scratched Perspex door. Photograph by Savina Hopkins, 2014. Savina Hopkins is an artist from Melbourne. See more of her artwork at savinahopkins.blogspot.com.au.

Cemetery votive box, seen through scratched Perspex door. Photograph by Savina Hopkins, 2014. Savina Hopkins is an artist from Melbourne. See more of her artwork at savinahopkins.blogspot.com.au.

This article originally appeared in Materiality: SURFACE, now out of print. To purchase an e-version, please visit our shop.