FOUND

I found a picture of you, the girl I once loved, changed time just to be with. The girl I slowed down to meet, sped up to miss. There’s a ring on your finger, but this is not what I notice. What I notice first is your confidence. Not caring that a camera has just collected you up into eternity, added you to that growing landfill of available information. Your details are teeth, thin wrists and a red string bracelet. You laugh, truly unaware of the consequence this laugh will have.

FIXTURES

I got a job as a bus driver for a regional women’s basketball team, driving them around through small country towns, dropping them at school halls, buildings sided with corrugated iron, even sometimes bitumen outdoor courts. I’d stand around outside, smoking, while they played their games, chatting to the other coach drivers, all men, all just as alone as me. It wasn’t a sexual thing, they all assured me. It wasn’t for the power, they said. One showed me an old mattress in his cargo hold. Another had a set of bath oils in his glove compartment. All had Kenny Loggins tapes stuck in the deck. The love of the game, they told me. Competition.

VICINITY

Just to have you there. That was all I ever wanted. That gentle pluck of breath as your lips unstuck, the sounds of you moving without knowing.