John Ernest Tranter

1943 / Cooma, New South Wales / Australia

Awakening

she wakes into the peach-glow bedroom
like a jet / the orange lips
writhing on the taste of bitter light
the flood-green eyes / exploding hair
(the avalanche of morning from the curtains
sluices white across the sheets)

and, gathering the strength of brightness like a shroud
the burning body rises, limbs depart,
the golden flesh / savaged in the dark / assaults the air!
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