The un-said

He’s new, he’s late, they’ve begun without him
he sits in the only seat left, the one next to her
The room closes upon him,
Here, breathing is all compression
Here, walls talk louder than their words
and the ancient tree is split to fill
space as board room table, holds notes and pens in resignation, hides
knocking knees

He listens to ideas bleached by conventions
thoughts adjusted and annealed by protocols
to his surprise she offers a candle hope to the darkness
speaks from a flicker alive in her eyes

Conversation and formality goes on
around them, between them,
grabbing to fill space and crush air
yet he knows they cling to oxygen bubbles
breathe a foreign place

She believes he does not notice her
or if he does not much
or if a bit more than that
then surely not too much

Not enough to want to open her
not enough to want to see the
beat in her heart, the
wet tears of her longing

her desire to be met in the depths
of the possible
to be unwrapped like a Christmas present
all the layers and foils
one by one, the pretty bows and ribbons

He does not hear her polite greeting card words
For him they are drowned by the moan of her soul
calling to the wild

His face is not turned long to hers
yet he holds her there in the corner of his eye
sees the black waterfall of her hair
the doe brown of her eyes

He sits as if arrested
as she spoke
he heard the second-heart-beat
of hidden words
the perhaps-messages
falling from the ceiling


Terry Farrell (Western Australia)