DEPENDENCY
1
We grow into each other
under twenty four connected fox skins
by radiator light.
My darling,
co-dependency is tidal:
with your glass of burgundy at 6 am,
with your red heeler grinning
at the stern of a clapped out skiff...
please, stop talking
& get your head off the wine bladder.
Responsibility hurts
because we are addictive.
At the Dunkirk mangrove tree piss-up,
offduty trawlermen
strain bullshit & silt
through torn nets of beerfoam.
They remember, they too
have stepped from the wagon
into the river; they know the cold
wake of withdrawal.
Your talk at the AA meeting
is famous - you were drunk,
but concealment
is your lifeıs work, secreting bottles
of cider in your coatfolds,
at home behind toilet rolls
& dirty clothes,
in your shoulder-bag
a flask of bourbon,
in your head the need for love.
I see you at the end of the breakwall,
throwing driftwood at pelicans -
your old trick
when you were broke, when there
was nothing else to do.
Where are you now - Newcastle, Sydney,
your smokerıs cough
spooking the pigeons?
Your past is famous. You drink from it.
You repeat the names of people
in the film & music industry.
Come home.
Play your jews harp at in-
appropriate moments,
piss yourself laughing when I bleed.
When you sleep,
your breath sour through
a broken skin of snoring,
Iıll watch over you.
I will call the ambulance
when youıre ready.
2
You are speaking fast again
in that thin metallic register.
On the dance floor
at the rave party, you mime fellatio
then do the fandango,
or is it the rumba,
solitary, lost in a techno cloud,
a mirror ballıs revolving dust
motes like spittle in your hair.
Tonight you are on the nod.
It could be funny
if you werenıt so ill.
I will count the blood-
chambers in the sand
beyond the Bondi pavilion,
then divide them by
how much horsemeat
youıve shared with strangers
to determine how much time
you have left on the planet,
party animal.
3
Self-discipline has failed me.
The need for sex
has been a long haul
through years of loathing
for the self & intimacy
is casual.
Endorphin. Dopamine.
The names of chemicals mean
nothing when you fuck.
Love? I thought
I saw it once, going down
the twelve steps of a program.
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