on the back of night, on her back naked

(and)
the space station low on the horizon, the sleeping hut on the slope, the genetic laboratory, the a + e unit, the bank headquarters, the studio

of bare boards and fly meshes, when the humming
starts up again and the wind after

midnight, the first faint birdsong, stars
still visible, the termite mound

nearby, the silent helicopter
landing place, we

                                       lied sleepless



                                       gender white, skin colour
                                       female –



when the creatures

were still human, inseparable species
language of all –



the grass

runs overland, up hill, down hill, turns to rice
and tea and back to grass –



then hands like tongues, the first
                                                     grammar



                                     nine hundred souls, still hirsute



trust was a smell – as the smell

penetrated her, as he moved her cold limbs and fell
asleep and only the smell still

moved her from within



                                                and this will

                                                in their skeletons by the side of the road selling
                                                flies and plastic glasses



breathing wall of weave and we

as though trickled into tropical sheets, tattooed into each other
before the dawning morning call – an over-watchful
lizard with transparent, shining dragonflies

sleeping in its neon belly, dragon-
flies, Ginger Bee
                                         eating you alive



I am the bird

gut they have to travel through, sleeping germs, and I
am the sleeper that travels



and the praying

mantis, its morning murmuring of arms and breathing
with the lambent lizard-tail
left behind in its belly,
the handphone transparently peeping



this gleaming girl

driving through the early evening city, drizzled asphalt, then
                                                                  stubble roadsides, then places
to fill up, tar traps, parcels of land

small as handkerchiefs; she’s not wearing her glasses because her moped
kows the way, the moped

sees everything



I licked

it, a thin-skinned, veiny membrane, translucently black, and
                                                                                the waste tips
stuck in the landscape, gliding past, their flickering
under the skin, fluttering

over the smouldering, sweating casks, I licked
it all, while gliding
                                              past



                                              only matter has

                                              created matter, nobody created we, we first
                                              created God –
                                                                              what for



                                              gas

                                              was the oldest silence in the world –



I nod, bound in a head-

scarf, floor-length smile in the eye-slit
of the guest culture: tolerance, yes, I

nod (impure), nod, nod: prayers for
a better world yes yes –



we travelled (or rather:) were travelled, someone

paid for the room, gave us a king-size bed, a curtain
of rainy season rustling, we already a jungle

of hair and teeth, in which your back

extinguished the flickering light, the rattling
of cooling fins, the smell of fly
poison, we
                                              are

                                              billions and billions, every cent
                                              of which

                                              wages war



a few words to redeem, goodness

perhaps, joy, mercy, or freedom, diversity, doubt, or
conscience or courage – the words redeem

or what they mean, or redeem
at all –

or at least: and



                                              flying dragon

                                              in my shoulder, rose-
                                                           fingered

                                              phoenix, in flood-nights it flies out
                                                           with burning claws –



everyone related

to everyone, even the mutants
related to everyone