When Fibre Falls Apart

...

When Fibre Falls Apart

(an ode to Suskind's Perfume)

She left her cardigan behind
on purpose
as though she knew
I'd never wash the wool

treat it like a relic
some martyred saint's
from early Christian days

not second-class to me.

Her shoulders formed a perfect fit
inside my winter gift
as if the wool itself
was fashioned first

She would lay upon the bed
sink into the quilt, and drown
her eyes in Suskind's Perfume

I would smell her nape,
her armpits and her hair
Not quite the sensitive Grenouille
but in my own olfactory way
she was my 'girl behind the wall'

All my days have turned to night

Now each night's an empty seat, across a table that never seemed so wide

a cluttered room
that never seemed so bare

My bed is empty now
It can't be filled with anyone
Not while her cardigan
lays draped across the bedpost

And, if
and when
I bunch the wool into a ball
and press it to my face
a horde of odours escape
like thousands of transparencies
captured on slow shutter-speed

those midnight drives in springtime hills
when apple blossoms overwhelmed the dust, and dirt
on leather car-seat ribbing
transferred to my cuffs

That itch on my skin
Is that the sand we rollicked in?
It could be
a thousand places along the coast
from the green-black splash at Wilson's Prom
to the endless stretch of blue and white, all along the Coorong

All my months have turned to winter

Maybe I'll never see another spring

I've seen her with her new man
he dines her at Du Champs
on the corner of Blithe and Spree

I gather he's fond of her
new buttoned jumper
he wears it
so close to his chest

I hope she tires of expensive tastes
and fancy clothes never replace
her one true love:
simplicity

Now my only joy
is that of the beloved Apostle
His Epistle, 1:1
"To have seen, and looked upon
and handled the divinity. "

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