To be lizard

to wait in a crevice
        for moths to end
                their flittering silvery fall

turned thinly sideways
        still   cold   silent
                ready with a dark tongue

out of language
        nothing but a faint
               pulse in the ears

minus a tail
        on the chancy road to freedom
                and not a backward glance

or sun-flattened
        the wishful thinking
               of warm rock

 
Self-portrait with oars

It's good to go backwards,
the sky sliding over your face
like a loved hand;
if you tilt your head to the sun
and close your eyes
it doesn't matter at all
(so long as you're in open water
and it's calm).

I tried it yesterday.
I braced my feet and leaned
back with the pull –
tsha-glop click, tsha-glop click –
again and again,
ripples pattering under the bow
and the sun illuminating
the blood in my eyelids.

When I opened my eyes,
rapt as a mystic,
I had gone full circle.
In Papua New Guinea
the past is in front of you;
it's what you can see.
The tricky future creeps up behind
and takes you by surprise.

I took this photo of my shadow
yesterday morning, early.
I'm about to enter the sea
and go round and round by mistake.