The world does not know it offers nothing.
           I am meant to see a white shirt,
whale bone buttons flashing under lights,
           the advice of a lissom woman
           sulfur crest in green pine leaves,
my arms on her brown thigh
           a cloud in the valley rising for the storm.

How to offer the shadow unmade
           by three white candles, the scent
left on my open palm
           by the featherless skull of a hawk,
           stones above Green Cape
a spectre for trawlers
           five metres deep beneath the foam.

I see her beer can balanced on an edge,
           mercury on the crease by her nipple ring,
Red flower on the verge of the widow,
           long hands crying in the earth.