i saw a cat choke / called it [redacted]
Photo by Reba Spike
day [break] / and the [broccoli] is moulting / the sunrise in [subjunctive tense] smells of crushed ants / our footfalls asking for [redacted] / crunch of blue metal with the [contrast] of ash / we watch yesterday’s leaves turn the suburb [static] / cleave tea towels out from under door [enjambment] / shake out [symbology] / dalmatian our hands / like raining pompeii [redacted] [redacted] / in the backyard / dirty clothes hold their breath / so tight they’re [two-dimensional] / reminding us of neighbours who left weeks [past tense] / even [hypothetical] / shirts and pants that we’ll refuse to wear but also refuse to [kill your darlings] / my mother unable to resolve [pacing] / waters the bone-dry buffalo / asks questions about birds that are not there / wanting to know why the evolved-extinct have [redacted] / wanting to know where the surviving go [query: to print] / as if [bird by bird] were the standard / she tin-mans the situation / hisses with a back made of titanium / a [perspective] from my father / tracks derby tracks for the dogs that have circled / and the cat that is [redacted] / door knocking / neighbours talk lost things like [plot] or [subplot] / mombasa’s haruki / [self-note: the women are not like the men] / rooves shake with wifebeater silhouettes scaling [ladders of abstraction] / men with more breath than instinct unclogging gutters that portend next year’s election / their [sonic] bodies surfing terracotta are children’s mouths speaking [words] far too big for them / i want to yell out / save us from the [universal] / while the woman who is neither my mother nor my aunt but still guards a door says she’s probably [redacted] / turn my vocal cords into [anchor points] / sail paper-boats between our eyes as if the grey sun were saying / i saw this suburb rise up in national [slogans] / or the [analogy] of a father / or the killer [texts] that journos have [redacted] / as if [onomatopoeic] crushed cans and [syncopated] flip-flops account for flip-flops and [onomatopoeia] / noisy [entries] in the [annuals] / as if a child’s [vision] of rome was anything other than [redacted]’s cut slipper / of course / no through road is [redundancy] / though we find ways to find ways / searching / attune ourselves to the quiet before a siren / attune ourselves to its after / anticipate for sale signs in cul-de-sacs that were long-ago [redacted] / if we can / envision children cracking puddles like glass ceilings / [query: can you rent out an after-life-style] / above us / waterbombers write infinities in chemtrail [calligraphy] / and my mother hissing cigarette smoke holds a camera up to the sun and winces / she is trying to circumnavigate an escape route or a memory / trying to wriggle this moment out of [apex] / my father who is pronounced with a hard f for all his sins may come here / destroy a sanctuary that is only a [stanza break] because it has not [redacted] / he is not fire but he is as good as [verisimilitude] / while the sky blurs and whizzes / palpitations of a lawn mower that never [intros] / of a day that is always [redacted] / a steel-capped eagle hums across [query: what’s the sky’s limit] / reverses a caesarean / carries hope in kaleidoscopic bedsheets / a cluster of trees transmuting into gospel hiss / into an [query: opening chapter] / becomes a mushroom / the cat is never [redacted] inside / the air conditioning runs continuously / and a [monotonous] cycle of cooking shows [features] mushrooms / they sizzle on a frying pan greasy with [metaphors] / dancing like [redacted] / a born again declares all their good properties [synecdoche] / we debate the killer [texts] that are supposed to save us / [bold] [letters] that turn the nameless into fossilised throats / my mother wants prayers / get updates / arguments over [query: how does fire work] / a shaka that could be mr. gadget’s handphone / in the [breaks] between bottles we forget the shapes of our mouths / our conversations [caesuras] / we learn it is easy to be [speechless] when we hold our breaths / learn that windows aren’t exits / objects that look in as much as out / we imagine our house like a [simile] or [psychic distance] / because if it is not a satellite it is something [redacted] / we whisk it till it becomes creamy / but a journo interrupts to [pronounce] the sky beetroot / and a military vessel larger than my house hovers in a harbour made of sleet / [query: or is that food dye] / as my mother [cryptics] her crossword by dotting her [i’s] and crossing her [t’s] then starting on the floors / scrubbing footprints that are grey baby [ducks lined up in a row] / or knowing her different [shades of broccoli] / while my aunt’s cigarette [notes] a dry riverbed / not able to tell the difference between smoke and / the journo / talking to locals / [talking] local / [the journal] talking [local] we look out / if only to reassure ourselves that we are not [juxtaposed] / a body of water [embodied] / yet somehow this does not [metre] / smoke [traces] / cotton wool over [staccato] suburbs / a psychotic distance that feels [present perfect] / now feels [past imperfect] / as my father’s [metaphor] chokes the cat to [redacted] / and dusk becomes another [enjambment]
