On Grief

Here's a poem I wrote today after staying in the Glasshouse Mountains for the last two nights.

On Grief

Gecko-clicks drag me away
from my novel, a tropical Chinese water drip
pressed flat against glass eardrums
and punctuating the warm winter night
without tone.

Without compass, I search for
structure to the glottal soundtrack of the evening;
syncopated against my pulse,
defiant and small and godforsaken,
and sincere.

Aural memory echoes soft
on the first birthday of my erstwhile sleeping daughter.
The pulsing ultrasound roar
a third percussive layer out of time.
Once even, now erratic.

Her silent face magenta-still.
Beyond my grasp.
The gecko-clicks stop as I move towards them, and
their absence becomes
another burden.