Eurydice in the underworld
My bones were formed in the sea
harvested like coral / the way I move is very
inter-tidal / In Sydney it rains hot
humidity makes the city / purr for it
I studied the earth / traced white scars
by the mangrove beds where the cormorants
thread the river with black bodies
All over the smell of eucalypt and the blonde
effervescent punch of wattle
I built a house from earth / set up surveillance
inside / took my body and pressed it
into the damp clay / made a trail
of snail shells to shutter the boundary
I called out my name many times
waiting for the sandstones of the river to catch it
and throw it back / I listened
but I could barely
make out the words
Eurydice beneath the waves
Low darkness by the tide edge
the pipis / blowing breath to stud
the sand like smallpox
I grab one, then a dozen, then a dozen more
They’ll crack their lips in the pot at night
thumb-flesh comma-ing onto the plate
In my bedroom at night the ocean
enters my dreams / the reef fish
the moray eels and then the rays
with their cool-angelic and outspread wings
The whales let their whole weight
beach against the bedframe / I ask them
to explain how death is another room
submerged but unreachable / in the parts
where only those with inner illumination
can make out the entrance / I ask
the man in charge here for a lantern
but he says / I’ve had my share of candle stubs
and burned them all in one go
It’s true / I wanted to eat my shellfish
in the ghost light and imagine you
across from me / salt-wet at the mouth
hair rippling like seaweed
from the movement of the tides
Eurydice at the beach
Do you remember the day we went to the beach
together at day-end / went in despite what everyone said
about the risk of sharks at dusk / We parted the soft waves
together and naked and white as peeled sticks of ice cream
We dove from the rocks and the shells of oysters
sliced through our feet / The salt got in and the stars
came down to rest / their bodies on the waves
They were so bright so like the seagulls in the day / and our blood
went out from the thousand tiny cuts and I remember we held
one other / slip-limbed / kept our chins
above the ocean in the dark
two bodies and all that water
as if dumped from a diving boat and forgotten
by a crew eager / to get home
the salt crests clapping at our lips and throats and burning
just a little and do you remember you said you’d catch
one star and submerge it so that when I went down
there’d be a light / by which I could find my way
back to the surface and to you / only you
would be gone / and an empty sea at night
is a way to cross boundaries
because a body is just a gathering
of cells in dark waters / is just a dream
in a spacious expanse / ever-expanding
____________
Petra Kamula is an Australian poet and writer. Her work has appeared in magazines including Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, Magma, Under the Radar, and Perverse, and was awarded the Malcolm Bradbury Prize by the University of East Anglia. She is currently editing Magma #80, and working towards a pamphlet.
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