Post-coital music

Deep in the night
midnight black on the blinds
I make my baby sing.

With his head tucked
under my chin
the long bow of his back

an up-turned boat
he is shipwrecked in my arms
and full of moans.

Across the ribbed cello
of his hull
my fingers fly

high and light as seabirds
landing
the timbre and the hollow

groaning out his song.
My fingers pluck his strings
and he cannot stop the singing

of his skin.
In the blue-black bruise of night
the bones of his back vibrate

and fill the rolling shadows
with whale song.


Julie Watts (Western Australia)

First published in Australian Love Poems, Inkerman & Blunt 2013.