On my notice board
your baby daughter
works her focus on
a toy giraffe.

My inbox pulses.
No more chemo, you
say your Mother's reached
her two months left.


I see you
above the Zambezi
ankles strapped
toes edging over

feeling the air

heart a womb
kicking with springbok
before you pour
yourself

into the falls

a cocktail

cherry head

it's stone

gravity

limbs spread
like liquid baubles
Amarula surfing
Crème de menthe

View

depth of steel
and genius blue

before you
comprehend again
order of sky and
valley sides.


At your wedding she
applauded me for
the pictures of you
from Africa:

‘the most hideous I have seen’

her face cornflower wise
freckled with humour
she owned you were an
ugly baby.

There is no advice
to lend a man who
plunged Smoke that Thunders.
The trick is to

let go
and be held
simultaneously.