What those months can sound like is something like
ragged longing, a golden hour meadow of meander,
deminers demobbed job done but sticky stray
tripwires traipse odd paths across the topography.
The only way through is to step sensibly
in a compact with the shudder a stray step can strafe
a basic week with, for Emma for ever ago.

Beware, the past is a wound throbbing with
the electricity of a storm the BOM shouldn’t have missed,
a territory’s contested border, the algorithm’s vindictive
caprice or a metaphor that shirks its chores,
ignores the none too subtle nudges to leave.
I’m older now and happier by lengths and
when what’s done is said and said is done,
tamp the temptation, leave things where they lie.