Reason Six

The text read:
‘Kissing you under an umbrella in the rain
goes straight to my list of favourite things.’
At Murray and Pier, the lunch crowd
passed around us. We, aside in time,
sealed in my wide column of dry —

my old golf umbrella's canopy
like a night sky far from city lights:
stars clear, uncounted pins in black
nylon weave. I don't remember
why I didn't walk you — maybe the rain
had let its arms go slack.

You left behind the scent of magnolia;
left makeup on my dark blue suit:
your cheek's relief on my shoulder —
the pale foundation print on flax escapes
authentication — a recollection, a relic I've kept
from the yellowing hands of time and air.


Chris Arnold (Western Australia)

This poem is an excerpt from a longer work, ‘The Process of Knowing’.