Mardi May

Trading Lovers 

When we are old, we will sip red wine

and talk of the lovers who coloured our lives.

We shall trade the dancer with his intricate steps

for a shooter with steady hands and a well-oiled gun.

The man with fire in his skin and eyes black as panthers,

for a cool poet, who seduced with words like fingers stroking.

My manic piano-playing man, who carried Mozart in his pocket,

for the singer, whose words warmed your heart one hot August night.

I will offer the mechanic, who knew the relevance of moving parts,

for a lean-muscled yoga man, who moved the earth with his mind.

We will relive those times we risked all for one brief kiss,

a knowing touch in the dark space between streetlights.

And as we sip red wine together, we will unweave our lives,

save the bold, bright threads of passion to warm our forgetful skin.

First published in The Weighing of the Heart: An Anthology of Emerging West Australian Poets.

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