Alas, alack.
Back here.
You always arrive
back here.
photo and poem by Rachel McAlpine
love
Comfort noise
After you hang up
your obsolete handpiece
after you go,
comfort noise
swells through the holes.
– – –
Rachel McAlpine
OK
OK, nail me down.
That’s fine.
Tenderize the I-steak
of my spine.
Melt me to champagne again
again, again, again.
*
Rachel McAlpine
In khaki
Your eyes are in khaki.
Are you at war
or on safari?
I would hate to be a pet
but I am scared
of dying.
*
Rachel McAlpine
The harbour darkens
The way the grey-green water
settles into the hollow and
swivels in the socket.
The way the green diminishes
and grey thickens and winces
as the wind crams the clouds across the bay.
And how your eyes flick and
heal so quickly after
the harbour darkens above me.
*
Rachel McAlpine
Passports
I love you nervously.
The neighbours know.
Are we manageable?
Can you say that word?
Are we even valid?
I love you mostly with
a careful paranoia and
at times a kind of folly.
There are laws, you know.
I think we ought to whisper.
You have overstayed.
You are one too many.
*
Rachel McAlpine
A sandwich by moonlight
A sandwich by moonlight
is not enough.
You need speckled linen shirts.
You need a bolt of lightning.
You need to jump on a fault line
very soon.
*
Rachel McAlpine
Poems in the wild—Rachel McAlpine 