I sat there and prayed
to have the wooden spike
prised from my infected heart;
I sat there and wished you were a splinter
under my fingernail,
like the ones my mother used to get
from the creaking cross-bars
of the old backyard clothesline-
the creaking thieves pinioned at either side
of the spiked backyard.

I remembered the pain she used to get
under her nail-
the agony of hanging out
the washing on a cold morning
in a bitter Blacktown winter.
I remembered the way the flesh underneath the nail
would have turned yellow,
the finger a puffed and poisoned cushion
around the wood...

and how she used to cry with the pain
and the bitterness
of pegging out the mangled clothes-
how she would wring the rough woolens by hand,
imprinting on them the despair of chapped
and chilblained fingers-
and how she used to say the wind off the mountains
would blow straight through her,
pulling a cardigan close,
remembering the pain of mothers' milk turned bad-
of milk turned to blood and water.

I remembered how the yellowed finger
would become evil and engorged,
and how, finally,
the little sliver of timber would
emerge from the toxic glue under her nail.

I sat there today,
wishing you were such a splinter.
I imagined my skin closing around you
to fester and go bad, and to, finally,
force you out and away from me
in an ooze of poison,
a final douching of passion.

I sat there today, feeling your closeness,
and I wished you were a splinter
under my nail.