To Mark

I went to you in search of horseradish
Gnarled root in dark earth
Sharp white breath:
eye-watering aroma of home

I went to you in search of horseradish-
suburban treasures
Arranged in the secret comfort
of a home I believed in

I went in serach of horseradish
And found you-
Offering Carnarvon bananas, and
fresh fish from the North West-

Breath palpitating under
a fine film of western salt

The raggedy lines of beetroot leaf
All point to a belonging
swayed by wanting it too much.

Insistence on a present I
Did not yet occupy.
Perhaps cannot yet occupy.

A dreamt suburbia that
Cannot yet exist

So we drift, and although
you stole me horseradish,
although your shop was
An inkling of community

I couldn't stay.

And now all my memories
Of that suburb are taut:
Pulled tight and dry
And I live no longer salad days
But walk instead carefully,
thinking,
Along an imagined line to hope.