Quiet

 

After this death I become    thin veined

my hands remade into petalled flesh.

 

I can hear the clink of my own laughter,

an undertow inside a metal chest.

 

The air tastes unexpectedly cheerful and,

at morning, like day-old smoke.

 

Since that day, I realise my face can be

both plain and shaded pyrotechnic.

 

His voice still combs through me like

bone fingers in wet hair.

 

The words I don’t use, that can only be said

in his vernacular, such as ‘risible’

and ‘hackneyed’

 

clock me awake, just when I am

arching    towards the left side

of our bed.

 

In Italian, they called a bed this size

matrimonial, like sleep and sex

can only be accomplished under a vow

inside a religion beneath a temple.

 

When you left, I felt the sky suck into my eyes

and all I could see were your old shoes

placed in the corner   and

 

your feet

becoming a garden

of marigolds.

 

Catherine Trundle

 

 

Catherine Trundle is a writer, mother and anthropologist, based in Wellington. She writes flash fiction, poetry and ethnography, and experiments with unpicking the boundaries between academic and creative genres. Recent works have appeared in Landfall, Not Very Quiet, Plumwood Mountain and Flash Frontier.

Listen to Catherine read ‘Undergrowth’ here