the walls of Lesbos
Miriel Lenore

to build a Lesbian wall
take big rough stones

don’t cut to fit
they are themselves undressed

balance each with care
use no cement no force

large gaps remain
the strength is in the touching

and the spaces

singing the dawn

a kookaburra laughs above us
on the track
we agree
we are ridiculous
one fat one old big hats
big boots binoculars
& comfortable rag-bag clothes

but in our canvas cave
as bird calls rouse campers
from their ten-hour sleep
& Jupiter’s leering eye
fades through the grey gums
we are languorous beautiful

my hand wakes
your dreaming breast
& birdsong melts morning
flames to velvet peace

Miriel Lenore is the author of Travelling Alone Together and three other collections of poetry. With Mary Moore, she has written the text of Masterkey, Moore’s multimedia adaptation, for the 1998 Perth and Adelaide Festivals, of a novel by the Japanese writer Masako Togawa.

From: Car Maintenance, Explosives and Love and other contemporary lesbian writings Eds. Susan Hawthorne, Cathie Dunsford, Susan Sayer
pp 332-333

Website: http://www.spinifexpress.com.au