Cold men who frame themselves in cold windows,
seeing reservoirs as sheets of lead,
who beat their hearts with black winds and bare trees
then bury them in books, or bury them
beneath their feet; who run from love and moan
it flees from me, and settle back in bed
just the same, comforted, grim as stone.
These men, who hide behind the furniture
when a real wind blows in, I need these men
like a horse-kick to the head. They have the gall
to laugh at girls like me who laugh and sing
sweet love-heart things—but now I’ve learned to say:
Move from the window, mate, and cop it sweet,
or freeze your arse off romanticizing sleet.
Cally Conan-Davies is an itinerant writer, driving and biking and sailing and kayaking her way around Australia. Sometimes, she picks up a poem. Some of these have appeared in Able Muse Review, The Flea, and may be read in The Able Muse Anthology.
