.jpg)
Sport 39: 2011
Nine movies
Nine movies
1 The Opposite of Sex
The first time is always awkward
You held the Jaffas where I could reach
your hand too close
to my leg
Apparently Lisa Kudrow has a degree
in something
We’re always so surprised
when actors aren’t stupid
Later that night
I jumped into a taxi
and the driver looked at you
through his rear-vision mirror
and asked
‘Are you breaking that poor guy’s heart?’
2 Ben Hur
You’d seemed too busy
so I was surprised, and a little
apprehensive to see you
waiting in the foyer
after all
page 290
We rushed in just after lights out
In those days we could sit right near the front
stretch our feet
to the radiators
I took care to avoid melting
my shoes, again
Three hours is a long time
if you’re not sure
six months was a long time
but I wasn’t sure
3 Cruel Intentions
We began with Indian
a spark leaping across the table
across the butter chicken
rice and naan
Like wound-up teenagers
watching wound-up teenagers
I was tipping, sliding
plunging into it like water
spelling out your name
with my tongue
I couldn’t wait to get home
4 American Beauty
Even a plastic bag pulled swirling into the sky
can be beautiful
*
Always the strange girl
wearing too much black
wrapping it around myself
like smoke
That time
lying on the deck beside the peace flame
we talked
of the afterlife
‘But what if it’s awful?’ I said
You replied
‘But what if it’s great?’
You are not
the intense boy
You do not swallow
all the light
Somehow
you are slowly making me
an optimist
5 Velvet Goldmine
It is a first date all over
we are starting
again, trying step after each tentative step
page 292
feeling the stretches, the ping of a string
threatening to break
I am afraid I am losing you
You are afraid of the same thing
You are drawn into the screen
just beyond my reach
it’s not the spandex, the glitter, it’s
the tugging in your stomach, the fear
of your own shadow
Later, we walk in the gardens
near the duck pond
You try to kiss me
I walk back alone
hoping these little white pebbles
will be enough
for you to find
your way
home
6 The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I’m pretty sure I know now
what love tastes like
and it takes something so
fantastical
to balance the sweet sharp salt
the corners of your tongue
to wash away the sticky syrup
that gets on my hands
and makes it hard to think
page 293
Running through the passages, tunnels of us
all made of books, stacked floor-to-ceiling, and if they should topple
we’d be trapped beneath Brontës and Eliots
Dostoyevoskys, Tolstoys
Atwoods and Couplands and Greenes
Living in constant danger of being crushed
by the weight of Western literature
is just one of the risks we take
I know there are rooms inside of me
that you’ve never been to
You’ve whole basements
you’ve locked yourself out
7 Before Sunset
On our somethingth wedding anniversary
we skived off work
to sit together in darkness
we all have regrets
and what ifs
and maybe-if-onlies
but also roads taken
mountains climbed
opportunities grasped with both greasy hands
and second chances
8 8 Shortbus
In the darkness
there is no need to blush
At home, we leave the lights on
A question begins to form
or is it an answer
9 Inland Empire
10 am is too early to descend into this darkness
but you come with me anyway
Hands clasped, we traverse its labyrinthine paths
I think we are all little lost girls seeking something
I think all I need now is hope
and that’s something
I never lost
At the end
I want to speak to no one else
We are spat out into sunlight