Alison Eastley
" i live in Tasmania, Australia where I imagine far too much but show no remorse. Previous work has been published in The Absinthe Literary Review, Doble Dare Press (one of my favourite journals), ibodi.com., Mannequin Envy and heaps more."
Turtle Dove
We sat outside on a wooden bench
the morning
after he undressed me and I undressed
him. The way he used his tongue,
feathery,
soft, circling wet
kisses, then dampening his fingers
like stars shining inside,
the light a slight tentative push before the plunge
from rim to ribs of muscle, then further up
the whipcrack
of downward flicked wings formed by his mouth
the sound turrr,
turrr
vibrating deeply within
and without any reason the name
of our hut is Turtle Dove.
The Bonfire On The Beach
The man who never smiles unless you call the slight curve
of his full lipped mouth, a tender tilt
to the sky the way exasperated people
use their eyes, unless his smile is satisfied
after sex, smug when he knows exactly what he's done,
when I don't know whether to threaten bare
boned revenge, a scheme or a scream of delight, knees
wobbly on the bed, ready to smack his head with a pillow.
Instead, we walk into town for the bonfire on the beach
near the band singing recycled songs you don't know
whether to laugh or cry and it starts to rain. The man
who never smiles takes my hand as if I'm about to yell
to hell with the rain, cause a scene, act like a child
when he guides me under a table, tells me to lean back,
to lean right in and he holds my back against his chest.
My legs stick out from under the table. A stranger
bends down, grins, then laughs and the man who never
smiles turns me around and kisses my lips.
Communication Of The Mind
He tries
to convince me sex
is communication
of the mind.
The mind
is roaming his body.
It's in his brain
and washes his mouth
that swallows
everything I spurt.
His mind
is in his cock and it's not telepathic
although he says I've read
his mind
several times
and left it in all sorts of places.
Is there any need to say the drive was tedious
and I lost my way
despite asking for directions
from strangers who drew maps and pointed with their eyebrows,
their arms full of grocery bags, their cars up the road
so I walked into an office, used a phone
and an exasperated tone as you explained where I had to go
when I was already starting to swear forget it,
I feel like going home because it made no difference
how patient you were or how slowly you shared the secret
of finding the hotel room, mine had run out plus I felt stupid
being a country girl let alone discovered
as one except it didn't turn out like any plan dreamt of in a hot
city night. You admitted as much when you said
you liked to surprises brighter than the sunrise we didn't see
or even suggest the pretence of coffee when me finally met
was exchanged for sex and then you opened my legs,
explored what you'd name as being yours although it was hard
to tell with every thrust I made you stayed until it was impossible
to know city from country, what was where or how we ended
up face to face as if history begins in a strange place.
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