Peter Minter

Fugue Moment

I was born by a threshold of nothing,
by the bride of fire, the populous vine
probing moonlight for its bare, eternal cash.
Unless I shelter by the galleon
in the midst of horses, or ride into an ending
further, further away, a part of me
brocaded by the fruit we hung
inciting violence and quiet air,
I am pleached in fire and the night’s relentless
silver creek, a sleeping owl espaliered.

My hair is ash, stars sewn on
smoke and blue cataracts of blood.

At last I have broken
soft-footed through the suave choristers
& their queer tempo, naked petals
shaken from the wind. O bright residuum
dissolve the pale aurora, jets of bone
erupting from the smell of seed and marrow
perfect in this inconstant universe,
your grassy breath lingers in the calyx
of my hand, plantations of perennial heat.

I am starving. I billow over night, the fire’s
dark encore blown around my feet
and flung as sparks into the silent vault.

Peter Minter is a leading Australian poet,
editor and academic.