Sport 39: 2011
For love
For love
So determined to see you, love,
with your new Irish boyfriend
that despite my flu
I booked myself
and my car on the ferry
and then wondered around the ship
ravaged and ready to sink
my teeth into someone’s
skull (I was so sick
and feverish).
Finding a private strip
of carpet under three portholes
I lay down on my back
for an hour or so wishing
I was home in bed
then sat outside on some rusty
metal steps above
a large truck of cows
and a small truck of chickens
in crates.
I was reading Dante’s Purgatorio.
I haven’t told the full
story. A day earlier in my idiotic
fever I booked a ticket for the wrong
day and couldn’t
get my money back.
Still I persevered and booked another
stacking up my debt
my sick heart swiveling in my chest
like the panicked eye
page 245
of the chicken looking
through slats.
It was dark when I drove
to the backpackers in Blenheim
and there you were
smiling and long-limbed
your sweet boyfriend with his wide grin
and his knitted jumper from Peru.
At the falafel place
he asked me many questions
about myself which prevented me
eating my meal
although I couldn’t mind—
he was nervous and I wondered
what he saw—me red-eyed, red-nosed
a bit wild and multiplied
the Purgatorio sticking out
of my jacket pocket.
You ate your falafel
and watched us lovingly.
The soft-spoken Irish boy
who couldn’t shut up
and the mother tilted
over her plate.
Next day in the mountains
we bathed in hot pools.
A strong winter sun pulsed
on the steamy waters, remember love?
like great yellow fish.
Whales rising around us.