From Poetry and Poetics Centre

Tim Sinclair

Exclusive to the Poetry and Poetics Centre

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Before you will fly

Before we made love we forgot our way. Before us

the way was dark and twisted. Before we could fall

we had to rise, but our wings were folded in the night. Damp

and filled with promise.

Down was a long way, and fall was the new rise. You held me.

That night in the forest, before sailing, before the fires.

You sent long, scorched letters, scented of vinyl

and ammonium nitrate. I struggled to reply.

Before this, there was nothing.

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4.04 am

Unable to sleep

and I come across the word funereal.

Anton Chekov, via Raymond Carver.

So many good words

associated with death.

Pallor, suicide, moribund, funereal.

Death itself. Death.

So spat out. So final.

Death.

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Great Wall: Simatai

It’s been more than two years

and you still won’t let go. You might be dead

by now. It might be better that way, I say

from my lounge chair, but your clawing hand

holds tight.

Broken English through broken teeth,

you followed me, bent and reeking,

as I strode up the wall – tight-packed stones

placed fifteen hundred years ago

when the land here was fertile,

worth protecting.

Ancient farmer, inelegantly whored

to a new profession, erosion gullies cracking

your sand-blasted face, you begged.

Poor me – I wanted freedom, unbounded steps,

the top. You followed. Guard tower

to guard tower, struggling for breath,

as I struggled to admire the view

with your wheeze at my back. You’re not

in the photos.

As I turned back down, away, at last

you cracked. Stumbling after me

you grabbed my arm, shook your trinkets

in my face and begged me to buy, told me

your story. I shook you off. I hurried down.

Back to my driver, back to my hotel,

my aeroplane out of this two-month journey,

my life.

Where the rain falls

and the fruit trees flower

and I exploit you

once again.