What It Might Take
Picture this: two mismatched painters, spattered with the
blood of a thousand emptied tins, discard their dusty phones,
reach over the table and clinch, beard to beard, a large couple,
bedecked with curtainous flowers and slimming pastels, drop
their smoothies, push the tables back and begin to dance,
the queue at the counter, miss sweatpants, miss earphones,
mr rolled up business section, stop ignoring their proximity,
turn to each other, kiss, the barista, gnarled, cynical, perfects
a fleur de leis in the next cup and stares into it with reverence,
longing, all of it, love, fearsome, destructive, consuming love,
the pigeons cooing, plastic pot plants flowering compulsively,
the chairs themselves, gangly, uncertain, twine and nuzzle,
son, sharing a smeary fudge with his father, reaches up for
hug and hug, this, all this, hidden, unacknowledged depth of
love, would shout itself out, would explode itself out, would
open like a major chord, and even you and I could maybe
say we love each other, could maybe say we love each other,
if the undercurrent in the earth, if the crashing roaring waves
can do it, if the pavement and the post-box could do it,
bowing and buckling in their hot happiness, then so could we.
Damen O’Brien is a multi-award-winning Australian poet. Damen’s prizes include The Moth Poetry Prize, the Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the Newcastle Poetry Prize. His poems have been published in New Ohio Review, Aesthetica, Arc Poetry Journal and elsewhere. Damen’s latest book is Walking the Boundary (Pitt Street Poetry, 2024).