i don't mind these stuttering stumbles
or watching lines fade in the sand
on thrumming nights. the pages of the
storybook tremble and fill with salt
before they sink to the bottom of the
sea with sharkbitten edges.

there's jack and jill
falling sideways from a hill,
breaking skulls along the way.
we'd fall harder still,
rocks set to kill,
and live some other day.

the night is too long when the clouds
forget to pull up the covers.
i miss the cricket music and the
florida sky is a little off-centre.
the strings trailing the stars are wrapped
on notches and pulled too tightly for
the wind to play.

hey diddle-diddle,
guitar broke the fiddle,
the mind jumps over the moon.
you're high as a kite,
and grinning too wide,
i'll watch you crash down soon.

i will let you pretend to be the air
or a tin can, if you'd prefer.
did you know, it is very difficult for
people to estimate how long it takes
them to fall asleep? tin cans and
air, you know, they don't need watches
or unconscious expulsions.

hickory dickory dock-
numbers fly off the clock.
faded lies
turn in jaded eyes,
hickory dickory dock.

she was not a bird, she realised.
she could not fly, and she was
not meant for land or air or lungs
or paperthin words on paperthin paper.
mother goose has shifted into a
shell and become mother fish,
forgetting her stories and singing
with the sirens in the sea.