Lost Poem

Summary

Geologists from the University of Sydney discovered that Sandy Island a 26km-wide island in the Pacific Ocean that can be seen on charts and maps, does not in fact exist.

The Guardian

Into the soft I go.

Under your cheek

slide in and find

the erratum slip

of a tongue.

*

Migrant in the mouth.

And the smell of yellow

decaying leaves,

spiced milk in steel cups,

my mother's yard of hair.

*

Your eye a drill –

your iris so close to

the surface skims

a sea rippling with

negatives.

*

Language in a tilted room

that gently seeps. And I compare

babies to the size of mothballs

… walnuts.

*

I'm taking in the waters

in the old tradition.

I'm taking in language

through my skin.