Feather-stuffed Sunday

My world has turned sluttish overnight-
a used-up whore that sprawls gummily
in a deep and leaden fedderbedden of restfulness.
Last night, we heard thunder knocking woodenly,
far away. What is it? my daughter asked,
from her makeshift mattress on the floor.

It’s only the sound of a storm, I said…
It’s only the sound of my mother and I,
I reminisced,
stifling ourselves in a cramped bedroom,
listening to the sound of thunder
snagged in the three gum trees
on the other side of the railway lines.

Sometimes, we forget which daughter
and which mother we are.

Last night’s daughter’s head hurt.
The room was hot,
the window and the napped velvet curtains
shut against the mindless mosquitoes
that torture our bland and dormant faces every night.
Sometimes, we forget which mosquitoes they are.

In the lonely hours, the rains came.
The thunder was soon right overhead,
exactly as my mother once described:
those obstinate angels, moving their beds.

In a thin, sleeveless thing, I found I had to go out
into the unctuous unwelcoming matte,
the sliding fingernails of rain,
where faceless, voiceless strangers peopled the behinds of
outhouses, amputated willows, sheds.
Returned to the faithfulness of bed,
the bright lick of the teeming
brought a cool and wet dreaming.

And now, the morning has turned jaded.
In a blink, it will be day.
Outside the back door,
bleached bouquets of paper hydrangeas glow,
and orange spikes of nameless bulbs kowtow,
and bruised impatiens blossoms spoon in their tub,
tatty and smudged.

The old lady is sated,
bleared and badger-eyed;
heavy-limbed and sunken
into the mattress of this feather-stuffed Sunday.

I creep around my house,
trying not to disturb the glottal way it breathes.
A puddle of raindrops on top of the stove
could be from a spilt glass of spoilt wine.
Do you hear a faint and worldly snoring?
The cheap blonde of paddock-grass leans askew,
parting to show dark roots.