Behind Orana Takeaway
By Rico Craig
We’re out of the rain, hunched around
a feast
five dollars worth of chips
ripped open on the concrete,
you’re breathing loud vinegar snorts,
licking your fingers with savour.
Taliyah grins at your glister-eyed hunger,
looks at the clotted skin beneath your singlet, she asks
to touch your scars.
When you don’t answer she eyes me, ‘How long’s
he been deaf?’
My answer is another swallow of chips.
You’re looking away at passing cars, don’t see
her question.
I watch her reach toward your scars.
behind the shops
the smell of dirty grease
rain on concrete
Her fingers are fearful at first
like your skin is molten
and the shiny flesh will pull away
all sticky on her tender nails.
I’m the only one who knows your story
We’re playing cricket in the rain;
you bowl
I slog;
the tennis ball fizzes over parked cars.
You turn tail and trot
out beyond the gutter.
White Holden
You don’t see
the car come around our corner, your turn
tail trot steps onto the street.
White Holden
always seeing
White Holden
always seeing
your body
a candid stillness on asphalt.
The car doesn’t stop, I’m the only one who hears it speed away.
You open your eyes.
Your back is a tale of gashes,
the delicate armature of your ears
has been disordered. I can’t read the strange, silent
terror your mind has been thrust into.
You stand and leg it,
run without looking back
like it was you who did wrong.
For minutes I fail to follow,
enough time for you to run up a walkway
into the streets beyond.
I search, alone
I search for hours. I search until
I find you in the stormwater drain
the shadow tunnel under our streets,
we’re not meant to come here.
You’re bent forward, hunched
with the concrete curve. A stream of water runs
around my ankles. There’s blood
leaking through the holes ripped in your shirt.
I yell an echo past your figure,
you don’t turn, intent on a lithe shape
nestled in your palm,
some charm you’ve given yourself into.
I’m thirsty, more thirsty than I’ve ever been,
and I kneel to drink the silty water running over
your feet. I swallow what I can in handfuls,
it tastes like the days we live through. I yell again,
my voice echoes away.
Closer, I see movement in your hands
a protean, reptile shimmer. You look up.
In your palm a skink bites silently at air. I speak,
you don’t answer. You’re gentle, thumb
cocked behind its neck, stroking its spine.
You pass the skink to me.
The heart patters against my palm
you quiver like a falling kite.
I’m the only one who knows your story
Taliyah's fingers settle on your scars, rest there
like it’s better than chips.
behind the shops
the smell of dirty grease
rain on concrete
You’re still, biting the air,
not turning to see her words
as she says
his scars feel like scales.