The wind blows hard among the pines
Toward the beginning
of an endless past.
Listen: you’ve heard everything.

Takahashi, “Wind Among the Pines”

Canberra, Australia

Outside my hotel window here
in Canberra, so far from home,
wind moaning through the pines,
orgiastic memories
haunt me
like an amputee
trapped in the attic
of her body,
who dreams of walking
on her own two legs.

I have my ear
pressed to the wall
listening for cries of passion
from a bed next door
the soft padding of feet
across the floor.

Published in Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens, 2003, Pudding House Press chapbook series