if he had touched you/ you would have cried in
the morning/ his touch cannot heal you: so cry/
you must cry tears that dogs cannot lick away/
flood your night dress/ a hah - a hah - a hah
hah hah hah/ until the cry is infantile/ until
the infant crying fills this room/ the room of
darkness/ that filled its lungs its hours/ those
long & desperate days of an infant alone/ this
dark stretch of childhood like a road to the
end/ the infant that marvelled at its own hold
on life/ its tiny body that convulsed/ until just
a convulsion filled the room/ & this crying
sound that jerked the room into being from
the miserable cot/ nappies were somehow
soiled/ miraculously there were hunger pains/
those faint sensations of warmth & cold/ a dry
old spider hung on the wall by the cot/ a small
brown bird hopped onto the window sill/ there
was a child amongst the crying/ & touch did
not heal her so cry/ cry like a baby on a great
flat rock in the sandy desert until the overhead
sun sinks your eyes into your forehead & your
small mouth offers its fluids to flies/ cry out
along that western australian coast until the
wind rises up from the indian ocean & slams
you inland - until it tumbles you over & over
in the west coast heath, seeds & burrs grasping
your clothing/ cry out along that ninety mile
beach to nothing but sand blown stretches &
great white pointers smelling out the shallows,
cry to that thunderstorm far out on the ocean
cry he cannot heal you so cry/ cry out to your
infancy - wring yourself out, hang yourself up
on the clothesline to dry by the heart of your
sleeve/ then look down all washed up like a
cloud to the earth, like a child to an insect,
like the sun to a rooftop, but first you must cry
like a cyclone
