Anu Rains

By Aaron Mills

As I slip with the wind through these damp streets,
I can be just more colour, beneath
shimmering rainbow canopies.
The heat of her hand is still with me, its dark creases
glancing over, unspoken.
I've been singing aloud
again, sway my way to a breathing ghost, words
swept into the breeze of these Glebe afternoons,
slipping by, stealing onward, domestic blur.
My voice wavers through the bone-cold,
rises between the folded edges of fading colours, soft brown
drifting, glimmer of Indian skin
dancing to the earth:
a flurry of autumn rain, then silence.
But the song keeps slipping out,
again and again
her face blends and parts,
just leaves swirling on third avenue
seeking pavement weathered by children's
boots, where leaves are gathering in folds,
a sari slipped through my fingers.
These recollections of children's feet are fleeting;

in any season, I see only
sandalled Henna, and
winter nights race forward.

We will dance through their darkness,
these Glebe afternoons.
Anu, falling, and I,
arms out eyes closed, wrapped in
skin rain
sway my way

 

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