I was preparing for talk about the weather,
small town updates, I miss you too’s
while following ghosts around
grey-clad slabs of Melbourne
instead, your faces were Russian dolls tapped together
afloat like rubbery armbands
in the black pool of the family leather couch.
A roly-poly stare of a wobbly screen.
I did not expect you to update me on
memory tests in James’,
sudden sick leave
early-onset cognitive decline.
The fall of an angel was
an upheld hand that fell flat to my hip.
All the heat in the world could not have
mustered up energy to speak of
the rush of a smacked face
when hit by an open over door
I watched his temples glisten like dewy honey
I’m not going anywhere, girl
later that evening, enfolding myself
in a full bottle of Oyster Bay
they didn’t hear my small whimpers through the night
I willed a way to go home.