‘Jesus and Mary – mother of God - help me’ runs her fingers along the smooth black oval beads, her thumb underneath as it lay gently across the tips of her fingers. She contemplates his suffering alongside her own as she gently strokes the silver relief of Christ’s body crucified.
A young woman, noticeably pregnant, wearing tracksuit pants and a short-sleeved top, smokes in the open air. A peripheral intravenous catheter taped so it won’t dislodge, protrudes from the middle of her right arm. Her mobile phone on her lap; this is her eleventh child, her husband will call. Never any trouble with any of the others, but with this one, still four months to go before it is born, points in the direction of her vagina. She is constantly bleeding. ‘Whatever God wants from me I’ll be happy’. ‘If he wants to take me to heaven, that’s fine’. The words like that of the other blind faith, he who martyrs himself will be rewarded with seventy two virgins in paradise. All pleasure of life or death delayed.
Saint Teresa of Avila dressed in a brown habit and black veil looking nothing like Bernini’s white marble rendition of her in a state of ecstasy, mouth falling slightly open, her bliss in the touch of his hand and the arrow pointing to her groin, is remembered in the dark tunic of a dying tree it’s hollow, deep, agape and giving. She always wore russet and would never be pure. No bridge for her between the filth and the glow. Half a dozen or so steps across the bridge and you could traverse the water. Discarded tires, dead branches sunk into the river mud, insects hovered in gentle motion, clear, smooth and slow.
Everything slows in the bliss. I am awash with the fire of you, obscured in the death of your enveloping eyes and seminal frost - sallow liquid sticks to her thigh. She looked at the photographs secreted away, felt a complicity in the others announcement that all were dead. She sewed feverishly; the cotton broke intermittently and with fine precision would re-thread the sharp point, pumping away at the pedal that set in motion the electrical gear. Yards and yards of grey satin fabric surrounded by peach-pink lace, fed by her hand into that frightening mouth, filled those long summer days, transformed the material miraculously into a dress to cover the doll, naked, except for white pants and little white cotton sox.
He enters with a double loaf of hot white bread on his shoulder. The fresh baked smile on his face that went to war too soon faded. Dirty, but healthy she arrived in a grey coat, yellow dress, green and white striped jumper, white socks and worn black shoes. The other ‘she’ is dressed in sweet pink and a white cardigan, swept her thick brown hair up into a ponytail at the top of her head, tied with a wide cherry bow. She would never be pure as the thick red syrup flowed from the edge of her lips and down to her chin. A flood of children threatened to swallow her, sitting cross-legged on the edge of gutter - like him, head in her hands.
Her double bed with brass bed ends high off the floor. Above, on the wall behind a photograph of the Sacred Heart, and on her dresser little red cut-glass containers filled with candles. A mixture of stale powder, incense, candle wax and excrement. It poured down her leg in easy flow onto the floor, had to be cleaned up quickly before the odor pervaded the house - all of her life, piss and shit and prayer.
The Murray River, which had a habit of flooding swept down to the land, carried her away before she could cry for help. Her body found face down bloated and blue in the sludge. No remembering then of using a fan to keep the baby cool or brushing flies away from its precious little face on a hot summer day; dragging up some dirty little secret – the black boy born and spoken about in whispers. Her muddy shoes soiled the pristine dress and the smudge on her front seemed to scream of the family soiled by the new arrival, the baby whose black skin would tarnish.
And, the other shame, the rush of pleasure without warning or instruction. The statue of the Virgin Mary, her blue flowing gown, her white foot gently resting on a coiled snake; its skin gently underneath her toes. Her eyes lower as he looks lovingly into her eyes, places the soft white round host onto her wet and yielding tongue. Death is a vast continuum as she sucks and swallows, a no-place, no dimensions or materiality.
Somewhere in the gap between language and thought memories become sticky with images of other things. The flames licked and devoured the outside of the building, crept along like slow violins at the beginning of Tchaikovsky’s Overture, building to a crescendo of color and light, subsiding slightly and gaining momentum again. Orgasmic. Water like thick ribbons of dancing light spurts from the ends of long hoses, turns the burning house into a blanket of smoke and she bleeds from between her legs.
Her drunken face turned pale as she miscarried; the buildings rushing past, the traffic lights a blur in the grey Melbourne rain. The loose dirt underneath the willow tree, grabbing green caterpillars, picking at the stinging sensation caused by their needle thin fleshy spikes as they moved, undulating like some far away ocean wave. Sweet sherbet, like so much dust, sucks her fingers from the bag of white flavored powder. Smell my finger, it smells like shit!
Her little paper rent book, filled with receipts kindly sent by the landlord was put to one side. To the right of it, rent from the border, her pension, and fifty shillings per week per child from the Government. Without a roof over your head she thought, and folded several pound notes and a couple of shillings on top of the book. Each bill covered with the correct amount of money, the remainder for food. Nothing left. She needed a perm, some new stockings and underwear. No, the underwear could wait.
He sobbed and wept because at eleven o’clock in the morning he was already drunk. She ran her hand along the edge of the seat beneath her thighs. Portions of the old paint surface chipped off and clung to her fingers. As she flicked off the residue she wondered how, with all the pain and suffering she had come to this. She could have had him with his big belly that stuck out from underneath his expensive waistcoat; he bought sweets for the kids in a brown paper bag, but threatened to burn them with the end of his cigarette. Picking at soft grass, caught in a whisper like a soft breeze it landed in her mind. She’s dead!
She stands and frantically sweeps the waves as they lap against the front door; her shriveled underarms flapping wildly. And the water already ten inches deep and rising. Two large lion statuettes that flanked the grey stone steps dwarf her body – the small child, white face died in the night and she cried. Nothing would ever be the same.
A young woman, noticeably pregnant, wearing tracksuit pants and a short-sleeved top, smokes in the open air. A peripheral intravenous catheter taped so it won’t dislodge, protrudes from the middle of her right arm. Her mobile phone on her lap; this is her eleventh child, her husband will call. Never any trouble with any of the others, but with this one, still four months to go before it is born, points in the direction of her vagina. She is constantly bleeding. ‘Whatever God wants from me I’ll be happy’. ‘If he wants to take me to heaven, that’s fine’. The words like that of the other blind faith, he who martyrs himself will be rewarded with seventy two virgins in paradise. All pleasure of life or death delayed.
Saint Teresa of Avila dressed in a brown habit and black veil looking nothing like Bernini’s white marble rendition of her in a state of ecstasy, mouth falling slightly open, her bliss in the touch of his hand and the arrow pointing to her groin, is remembered in the dark tunic of a dying tree it’s hollow, deep, agape and giving. She always wore russet and would never be pure. No bridge for her between the filth and the glow. Half a dozen or so steps across the bridge and you could traverse the water. Discarded tires, dead branches sunk into the river mud, insects hovered in gentle motion, clear, smooth and slow.
Everything slows in the bliss. I am awash with the fire of you, obscured in the death of your enveloping eyes and seminal frost - sallow liquid sticks to her thigh. She looked at the photographs secreted away, felt a complicity in the others announcement that all were dead. She sewed feverishly; the cotton broke intermittently and with fine precision would re-thread the sharp point, pumping away at the pedal that set in motion the electrical gear. Yards and yards of grey satin fabric surrounded by peach-pink lace, fed by her hand into that frightening mouth, filled those long summer days, transformed the material miraculously into a dress to cover the doll, naked, except for white pants and little white cotton sox.
He enters with a double loaf of hot white bread on his shoulder. The fresh baked smile on his face that went to war too soon faded. Dirty, but healthy she arrived in a grey coat, yellow dress, green and white striped jumper, white socks and worn black shoes. The other ‘she’ is dressed in sweet pink and a white cardigan, swept her thick brown hair up into a ponytail at the top of her head, tied with a wide cherry bow. She would never be pure as the thick red syrup flowed from the edge of her lips and down to her chin. A flood of children threatened to swallow her, sitting cross-legged on the edge of gutter - like him, head in her hands.
Her double bed with brass bed ends high off the floor. Above, on the wall behind a photograph of the Sacred Heart, and on her dresser little red cut-glass containers filled with candles. A mixture of stale powder, incense, candle wax and excrement. It poured down her leg in easy flow onto the floor, had to be cleaned up quickly before the odor pervaded the house - all of her life, piss and shit and prayer.
The Murray River, which had a habit of flooding swept down to the land, carried her away before she could cry for help. Her body found face down bloated and blue in the sludge. No remembering then of using a fan to keep the baby cool or brushing flies away from its precious little face on a hot summer day; dragging up some dirty little secret – the black boy born and spoken about in whispers. Her muddy shoes soiled the pristine dress and the smudge on her front seemed to scream of the family soiled by the new arrival, the baby whose black skin would tarnish.
And, the other shame, the rush of pleasure without warning or instruction. The statue of the Virgin Mary, her blue flowing gown, her white foot gently resting on a coiled snake; its skin gently underneath her toes. Her eyes lower as he looks lovingly into her eyes, places the soft white round host onto her wet and yielding tongue. Death is a vast continuum as she sucks and swallows, a no-place, no dimensions or materiality.
Somewhere in the gap between language and thought memories become sticky with images of other things. The flames licked and devoured the outside of the building, crept along like slow violins at the beginning of Tchaikovsky’s Overture, building to a crescendo of color and light, subsiding slightly and gaining momentum again. Orgasmic. Water like thick ribbons of dancing light spurts from the ends of long hoses, turns the burning house into a blanket of smoke and she bleeds from between her legs.
Her drunken face turned pale as she miscarried; the buildings rushing past, the traffic lights a blur in the grey Melbourne rain. The loose dirt underneath the willow tree, grabbing green caterpillars, picking at the stinging sensation caused by their needle thin fleshy spikes as they moved, undulating like some far away ocean wave. Sweet sherbet, like so much dust, sucks her fingers from the bag of white flavored powder. Smell my finger, it smells like shit!
Her little paper rent book, filled with receipts kindly sent by the landlord was put to one side. To the right of it, rent from the border, her pension, and fifty shillings per week per child from the Government. Without a roof over your head she thought, and folded several pound notes and a couple of shillings on top of the book. Each bill covered with the correct amount of money, the remainder for food. Nothing left. She needed a perm, some new stockings and underwear. No, the underwear could wait.
He sobbed and wept because at eleven o’clock in the morning he was already drunk. She ran her hand along the edge of the seat beneath her thighs. Portions of the old paint surface chipped off and clung to her fingers. As she flicked off the residue she wondered how, with all the pain and suffering she had come to this. She could have had him with his big belly that stuck out from underneath his expensive waistcoat; he bought sweets for the kids in a brown paper bag, but threatened to burn them with the end of his cigarette. Picking at soft grass, caught in a whisper like a soft breeze it landed in her mind. She’s dead!
She stands and frantically sweeps the waves as they lap against the front door; her shriveled underarms flapping wildly. And the water already ten inches deep and rising. Two large lion statuettes that flanked the grey stone steps dwarf her body – the small child, white face died in the night and she cried. Nothing would ever be the same.
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