We are our histories
by Zar Kuri

We are  

the lovebites of invited strangers 

We are  

the tug and pull of hair  

From follicle to finger  

We linger 

on the scent of unmarked threads  

Coloured cotton unspun  

You disrobed  

As songs played in a distant room  

Just the slow call of them:  

An unheard tune.  

You bring it home for me  

Draw me in and then to my knees  

And call me  

to make it mine.  

I heard you say                                     ‘She liked to party’ 

(As she kissed soft wet lips) 

Your ex-wife  

And all the blessed exes 

The way they touched our skin, 

rubbed shea butter, 

massaged the creases, 

smoothed out lines, 

Played tic tac toe on bones 

Cluttered, thrust and broke  

A sense of you 

They broke me in, too.  

Harnessed the wild 

Tamed the shrillest parts in me,  

Then they tamed your locks in you.  

How they feathered lashes on our cheekbones 

How tongues got tied  

In vagueries of unknown language as we settle into  

new lands 

new bodies,  

Terrains to be discovered  

and uncovered  

I am geographical as I study  

the rise and falls of you  

the colour shifts  

like stone to ash  

and burnt desert to ember 

I mark out Australia on your skin 

Traced out like the explorer I am 

The Magellan of my retina  

Beckons me to conquer you 

Or be conquered.  

We are our histories  

As we rumble under used sheets 

The stain and pull of thousands of untold tales 

Who knew me then, know now. 

I can be ordered around. 

We who dare dream must exist only in the eternal present 

Wittgenstein would be proud  

that I think of my past in sonnet 

and live solely in the now.  

Zar Kuri is a polymath, mother, creator, philanthropreneur. A woman who never sits still. Lover all the things.