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190 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
‘Who taught you to write in blood on my back? Who taught you to use your hands as branding irons? You have scored your name into my shoulders, referenced me with your mark. The pads of your fingers have become printing blocks, you tap a message on to my skin, meaning into my body.’
‘Louise, in this single bed, between these garish sheets, I will find a map as likely as any treasure hunt. I will explore you and mine you and you will redraw me according to your will. We shall cross one another's boundaries and make ourselves one nation.’
‘The body that has lain beside you in sickness and in health. The body your arms still long for dead or not. You were intimate with every muscle, privy to the eyelids moving in sleep. This is the body where your name is written, passing into the hands of strangers.’
She smells of the sea. She smells of rockpools when I was a child. She keeps a starfish in there. I crouch down to taste the salt, to run my fingers around the rim. She opens and shuts like a sea anemone (p. 73).
Scoop me in your hands for I am good soil. Eat of me and let me be sweet (p. 20).
Can love have texture? It is palpable to me, the feeling between us, I weight it in my hands the way I weight your head in my hands.
It gives me a loose-limbed confidence to know you'll be there. I'm expected.
There's continuum. There's freedom.
Written on the body is a se red code only visible in certain lights.
It is so terrifying, love