Joy Holley
Premature Nostalgia
You and I
have coaxed a baby alligator
out of the sewers
*
*
and we are feeding him
leftover birthday cake.
The smell of tea tree
*
*
is everywhere
and my hair is
on the sheet –
*
*
thick, black, curly –
waiting to be
found.
*
*
We lie around
listening to poetry on cassette,
sleeping on the couch
*
*
while it rains.
You sculpt ears
and I squeeze
*
*
toothpaste onto plates.
There are tiny dresses
in the ice.
*
*
We travel by trolley,
turn rosebuds inside out.
Our alligator gets hungry again.
*
*
But there is no cake left
and we are already
missing him.
Delaying The Inevitable
At 12, we turn the moon –
a volume knob – to zero.
We have been pretending for hours.
But now our lips
have bumped into each other
again
and we have stopped
still. Shaking,
they remain
together pressed,
soft as
mandarin flesh.
Our heavy breaths –
a nervous question.
We ask it many times.
The answer is
a thousand questions,
a timid confession,
a dream.
You fall asleep
while I lie watching
my ribcage swell;
silent as a rabbit,
a road at night,
a piece of tar.
Joy Holley is currently studying English, Philosophy and Creative Writing at Victoria University. She finds supermarket shopping stressful because she spends all her money on records, lingerie and nut butter.