shame and her sisters:

for katrina schlunke

my ideal writer doesn’t blush
            she’s non-virtuosic
often anachronistic
            last night i saw her dancing
like a bush-pig
            i’m hip
                  she’s hick 

the avant garde
            out of the question 

            instead her voice has a low growl
a pitch
            i’m learning to hear as ethical
like an animal
might be
            the last wild thylacine probably shot
in a chook pen 

this is the banality of her history 

in high school
     we’d have said
‘shame job’ 

                 derryn hinch also years
              ahead of his time 

            the affect de jour
            so very al. anon.

as espoused
            by an academic wraith 

            then the jitters start 

wanting to be
            in her coterie of one 

but she’s the bellwether 

the proof’s
       in a polaroid crotch shot 

(so much for the perfect crime) 

imagining holding her
            against the page
my p-r-e-c-i-o-u-s 

another city of murders
            neo-gothic as liquorice all sorts
the scene
            some kind of antipodean joust 

while
she plays dead
            on the floor (heavenly creature) 

                        ‘shame & her sisters’—silvan-tompkins
                        ‘hygienic lily’–mtc cronin