Two poems
Cherubs
Standing on a stool, looking for herbal teabags, teabags being a prop, a means to normality,
newly home, our jackets not yet removed, my intimate’s arm has appeared around my hips, I
glance down, back up and search for these teabags we aren’t interested in, a box of
peppermint, a bottle of blackcurrant cordial, a jar of chamomile, his arm—and he’s shy, he
rarely approaches—secured around my hips, this near empty jar of chamomile, I hold it to the
light for us, powder almost, ‘From a friend who moved away.’ I step down, ‘She grew and
dried it.’ ‘I’ve never had real chamomile before.’ Leander looks at the jar. His fingers lightly
star-press on mine, ‘I mean, never loose-leaf before.’ There is no subtext to this. We are
sober, Leander and I, I pat the side of the kettle, it is hot, I fill our pot. Look at the attention
we track on our prop, until it softens and becomes part of our night. ‘I should plant
chamomile.’ I swirl the pot. ‘You dry the flowers. That’s all it is.’ The powder swells in the
strainer, a true and right dose.
Later, when we play at carefully handling each other’s forearms, he names my ropey veins to
belong to one fit to plant chamomile, ‘Working hands.’ His academic hands smooth, his skin
pale, ‘Too long in the basement.’ He closes his eyes. I stroke his hair. ‘You have freckles on
your eyelids.’ He displays his lids to me. His eyes reopen, ‘I’ll take your word on that.’
And then we sharpen pencils. Hush. And draw each other exceedingly well.
Female Gaze
I like the flexed vanity of some men
and the soft security others have in
the unique proportions to their stomachs
their legs, their cocks, their haired quarters
soft security, not knowing themselves to be unusual
There is only unusual. There is only beautiful.
The twin moles on Faun’s weak upper back.
How I try to describe the late arcs of his upper lip to him
and need to and fail to.
His own upper lip conscious unto itself,
sound in its breadth, its moderate dip and its far contour.
Its capacity to feel in a crudely literal way
Anny Trolove (Cameron, Anderson, Sidoli families) is a writer and arts reviewer in Ōtepoti. She may have some way to go, but her ambition is to make artists cry and readers scream. Find her work at angelatrolove.com.