I gave you my eyes.

And you took them — but, still,
it wasn't enough.

I gave you my hands,
and all they had touched,
and all that had been touched by them — but, still,
it wasn't enough.

Can you remember?
My eyes were the colour of two seas
which no one would ever name,
or of a spring that would never see another spring again —but, still, this wasn't enough:
we weren't complete.

You were — frankly — restless, magical, infinite —
no one knew where you were going,
and they still don't.
But you were so ordinary too, so dangerously finite,
you chafed against yourself,
calling this a lover's name,
but a lover you didn't love:
and you noticed the way clouds formed in the evening
above the rooves, when winter meant nothing to you.

I gave you my mouth,
and with my mouth I gave you
every word I would ever speak,
those hot, luminous things I couldn't bear to keep quiet —
even these words, which I'll give to you
and no one else.

And I kissed you — it was
the peak of my life — but, still,
this wasn't enough:
you didn't have everything,
and we weren't complete.
I gave you the rain — the cold, new rain
of my days, autumn when the sky
is milk and cataract, or a summer shower
like a birth at noon
on the dirty streets,
among the monoxide, aphids and butterflies
of my boyhood town,
laying the dust.

You took all I offered,
and you kept on taking.
I gave you the cast
net of my flesh,
adolescence of acetylene and horses,
eel dreams, the pink ghosts
of ink in water.
I gave you my unease,
the limping dog of my sympathy.
I gave you the fillings from my teeth,
and the sugar and sloth
which gave them to me.
I gave you plum blossoms
blown between speeding trains.
Still, this wasn't enough,
and we weren't complete.

I gave you my distance,
and you moved through it,
all that numb
azure where people drift away and no one
feels them going;
you slipped through those crowds,
Asia and sampans, roosters in cages,
and I saw you,
I asked you to wait —
but you knew that was childish
and you laughed, and kissed me, brushingly, on my temple,
and then didn't look back.

You took so much:
you couldn't stop taking.
I gave you more distance, more space, wheatbelt and airliner,
my own indifference when I am serene
and empty, like a river
with a sky floating upon it,
and when the sun's glare
turns the water to molten platinum
and flows on, anyway,
having lost the sky —
days when you were hungry,
and used me easily, without a thought,
and I let you use me
because I was the nearest thing to you, and didn't care —
distant like a river, narcotic like knowing
never to look back…

I gave you that river,
and I watched you go;
I didn't look back,
I gave you a lost life, casually, as they are.
I gave you so many things —
both those things which belonged to others,
and those things which could only belong to me —
but, still, it wasn't enough:
we weren't complete.

I gave you everything, and sometimes willingly,
sometimes against myself, in a tearing way,
I gave you the finest things I could be —
yes, and the worst.
I gave you my proud dirt,
my time lying on the ground,
the shining animal worn loose from its mother —
my death, always raised like Abraham's knife —
even the real night by the shore when I was alone,
when the wind swirled the sand and moved through the Martin's pines
which first seemed as if they would shout,
then cry, then break,
but which just shimmered, shimmered, shimmered —
still, this wasn't enough,
you were still somehow alone
by the Tasman Sea.

I loved you, and I gave you these words again:
they were the colour of young pine shoots,
of a spring that would see another spring —
but this time, you didn't take them,
this time, you weren't enough,
and, naturally, we weren't complete.

Winter meant nothing to you, autumn, it meant nothing to you —
you were frank and translucent,
something roiled in you insatiably
like a fire on the ocean bed
even in the cool of the evening in September
when the sky is flat and serene and settled,
and you noticed the clouds in a herringbone formation
from the attic room among city rooves —
something rose in you incessantly
like a fire burning in water,
and it was always a night approaching,
and it was always a child.

Naturally, I gave you myself —
what else could I do,
who else could I give myself to?
I gave you back myself, and those little stints of breath
we'd performed in my nostrils;
and I moved in you as if in an element,
like divers in water,
or the morning in a new lover
in November, with a scent of woodsmoke in the air.

And still, we weren't complete,
it wasn't enough.
You took and you took — and if sometimes I hated you,
that was simple, it was because I wasn't enough.
And you were so phenomenally generous
you took my hatred, easily,
you were much greater than that;
and you were greater than my love, too,
which I never was.

You took everything I had,
and then you kept on taking.
You took my emptiness, and my turquoise truck,
my castle, my terminal fatigue.
You took my last words —
the final ones, the ones I didn't write when I was young
but which had all my youth in them,
words I would tie myself to,
words with you in them and which, like a Russian,
I could address to the whole crowd of time,
the night, history, the stars.
You took my death, and the silence I'd beaten out
like a tough metal for so long.
You took my dreams, and all my waking thoughts;
I gave you my love, and you took it,
sometimes like a thief,
and sometimes when it really belonged to you.

In the end,
you took everyone I cared for.
You took my mother, my father, my brother,
my beautiful friends.
I gave you my hands, my mouth,
fingertips, nostrils, tongue; I gave you the sound
of the word, 'undefeated'.
You took everything I cared for.
I gave you my word.
I gave you my eyes.

You give me your eyes.
You give me the great darkness of my life.
You took everything — but yourself,
you couldn't take.
You give me everything — and, for me,
this is enough, it is more
than I can bear.
And still we're not complete.

Once again, I give you my words.
I give you my hands.
I give you my eyes.

Open them. Close them.

Open them.

Copyright © Michael Ayres, 2003.

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