< Back to Contents

tate fountain

break/fast and mend/slowly


                                             [                                                                                            ]
a meal taken alone            [               carefully arranged                                            ]
                                             [               amongst chrysanthemums                              ]
                                             [               and wet sunlight                                               ]
                                             [                                                                                            ]
                                             [               the tea warm                                                      ]               literature as geometry
                                             [               and the hour early                                            ]
                                             [                                                                                            ]

                                                                                                                                           ]
                                                                                                                                           ]
                                                                                                                                           ]               myself at ease
                                                                                                                                           ]

                                                                                                                                           ]
                                                                                                                                           ]               digestible

                                                                                                                                           ]

                             Embroidered on a pincushion:

                             HUGS THE LEFT ON HER BALLOT
                             BUT NOT IN A POEM

Do you know what I want apart from everything?                                                    ]               and to be the ankle
                                                                                                                                           ]               around which your
              To be the kind of person who wakes and calls it rising.                             ]               hand splays
              —06.30am         Rise                                                                                         ]
                                          Read L’s latest; hear K clamber into the shower           ]               the purchaser and
                                          Brew us both a hot drink                                                    ]               wearer of the sock
                                          Try not to think about how different I am in                  ]               into which your
                                                         prose, or whether my broken toenail is            ]               fingers slip
                                                         infected, or the fear that everything I               ]
                                                         ever do will be a muted shout in a                     ]               the person to whom
                                                         crowded room full of the people I care             ]               there need be no
                                                         for most                                                                   ]               explanation?

                                             [
a meal taken alone            [
                                             [
                                             [

                                                                                      I’m sorry I cannot ask for less.
                                                                                      It’s all, to a degree, self-flagellation.

                             Embroidered on a

                             PUNCUSHION

                                                                                      Perhaps if I did less you would know me better.
                                                                                      But too much is all I can do, I’m afraid.

                                                                                      I’ll lose sleep and love you more than anything.

                                             [
gold like melted                 [
butter and soft                   [
yolk                                      [
                                             [
thin Vogel’s                        [               a meal taken alone
                                             [
pink Himalayan salt         [
                                             [

                                             ]
                                             ]
                                             ]
                                             ]
                                             ]               it’s a hunger
                                             ]
                                             ]                              inextinguishable
                                             ]
                                             ]

iterations


i.
In my head you’re sitting on the couch at a work friend’s party. You’re wearing an old, well-kept t-shirt in support of some local band; I don’t know if they’re together anymore, but you wear the shirt anyway. It’s dark outside—the kind of dark which accounts for urban light pollution—and the light inside the living room feels hollow, a buttery, synthetic orange. Each bulb glows overhead like a desaturated sun. And you’re there, thinking of me. Perhaps we haven’t seen each other in a while and a song has come on—one we never explicitly spoke about but you might have heard it on the radio or wafting out of a shop as you travelled to meet me, or else just after we said goodbye to each other, or else some other time when you were compelled to recall my place in your life. And of course I’m not at the party; I’m somewhere far enough away that it aches, though not so far away as to be truly inaccessible. You decide to call me, and you decide to leave the party, but it’s especially vital and insightful that you call ahead, because you know I don’t like to be caught by surprise in my own home, and to know those details about someone is to love them, or at least to have loved them once. And you come to meet me, and I open my door. You are tall, and backlit by the streetlamps with their staticky halos, and you seem nervous, but resolute. And warm. And I invite you in. And we’re so happy to see each other that we end up talking past one another in our earnestness—or else we’re so happy that we cut immediately to the quick. I’d love a night like that. It really would only take one. Something solid to roll around in my head. Something to smile about while the jug boils.

a.

In my head you’re sitting on the couch at a work friend’s party. You’re wearing an old, well-kept t-shirt in support of some local band; I don’t know if they’re together anymore, but you wear the shirt anyway. It’s dark outside—the kind of dark which accounts for urban light pollution—and the light inside the living room feels hollow, a buttery, synthetic orange. Each bulb glows overhead like a desaturated sun. And you’re there, thinking of me. Perhaps we haven’t seen each other in a while and a song has come on—one we never explicitly spoke about but you might have heard it on the radio or wafting out of a shop as you travelled to meet me, or else just after we said goodbye to each other, or else some other time when you were compelled to recall my place in your life. And of course I’m not at the party; I’m somewhere far enough away that it aches, though not so far away as to be truly inaccessible. You decide to call me, and you decide to leave the party, but it’s especially vital and insightful that you call ahead, because you know I don’t like to be caught by surprise in my own home, and to know those details about someone is to love them, or at least to have loved them once. And you come to meet me, and I open my door. You are tall, and backlit by the streetlamps with their staticky halos, and you seem nervous, but resolute. And warm. And I invite you in. And we’re so happy to see each other that we end up talking past one-another in our earnestness—or else we’re so happy that we cut immediately to the quick. I’d love a night like that. It really would only take one. Something solid to roll around in my head. Something to smile about while the jug boils.

1.

In my head you’re sitting on the couch at a work friend’s party. You’re wearing an old, well-kept t-shirt in support of some local band; I don’t know if they’re together anymore, but you wear the shirt anyway. It’s dark outside—the kind of dark which accounts for urban light pollution—and the light inside the living room feels hollow, a buttery, synthetic orange. Each bulb glows overhead like a desaturated sun. And you’re there, thinking of me. Perhaps we haven’t seen each other in a while and a song has come on—one we never explicitly spoke about but you might have heard it on the radio or wafting out of a shop as you travelled to meet me, or else just after we said goodbye to each other, or else some other time when you were compelled to recall my place in your life. And of course I’m not at the party; I’m somewhere far enough away that it aches, though not so far away as to be truly inaccessible. You decide to call me, and you decide to leave the party, but it’s especially vital and insightful that you call ahead, because you know I don’t like to be caught by surprise in my own home, and to know those details about someone is to love them, or at least to have loved them once. And you come to meet me, and I open my door. You are tall, and backlit by the streetlamps with their staticky halos, and you seem nervous, but resolute. And warm. And I invite you in. And we’re so happy to see each other that we end up talking past one-another in our earnestness—or else we’re so happy that we cut immediately to the quick. I’d love a night like that. It really would only take one. Something solid to roll around in my head. Something to smile about while the jug boils.

*.

In my head you’re sitting on the couch at a work friend’s party. You’re wearing an old, well-kept t-shirt in support of some local band; I don’t know if they’re together anymore, but you wear the shirt anyway. It’s dark outside—the kind of dark which accounts for urban light pollution—and the light inside the living room feels hollow, a buttery, synthetic orange. Each bulb glows overhead like a desaturated sun. And you’re there, thinking of me. Perhaps we haven’t seen each other in a while and a song has come on—one we never explicitly spoke about but you might have heard it on the radio or wafting out of a shop as you travelled to meet me, or else just after we said goodbye to each other, or else some other time when you were compelled to recall my place in your life. And of course I’m not at the party; I’m somewhere far enough away that it aches, though not so far away as to be truly inaccessible. You decide to call me, and you decide to leave the party, but it’s especially vital and insightful that you call ahead, because you know I don’t like to be caught by surprise in my own home, and to know those details about someone is to love them, or at least to have loved them once. And you come to meet me, and I open my door. You are tall, and backlit by the streetlamps with their staticky halos, and you seem nervous, but resolute. And warm. And I invite you in. And we’re so happy to see each other that we end up talking past one-another in our earnestness—or else we’re so happy that we cut immediately to the quick. I’d love a night like that. It really would only take one. Something solid to roll around in my head. Something to smile about while the jug boils.

—.

In my head you’re sitting on the couch at a work friend’s party. You’re wearing an old, well-kept t-shirt in support of some local band; I don’t know if they’re together anymore, but you wear the shirt anyway. It’s dark outside—the kind of dark which accounts for urban light pollution—and the light inside the living room feels hollow, a buttery, synthetic orange. Each bulb glows overhead like a desaturated sun. And you’re there, thinking of me. Perhaps we haven’t seen each other in a while and a song has come on—one we never explicitly spoke about but you might have heard it on the radio or wafting out of a shop as you travelled to meet me, or else just after we said goodbye to each other, or else some other time when you were compelled to recall my place in your life. And of course I’m not at the party; I’m somewhere far enough away that it aches, though not so far away as to be truly inaccessible. You decide to call me, and you decide to leave the party, but it’s especially vital and insightful that you call ahead, because you know I don’t like to be caught by surprise in my own home, and to know those details about someone is to love them, or at least to have loved them once. And you come to meet me, and I open my door. You are tall, and backlit by the streetlamps with their staticky halos, and you seem nervous, but resolute. And warm. And I invite you in. And we’re so happy to see each other that we end up talking past one-another in our earnestness—or else we’re so happy that we cut immediately to the quick. I’d love a night like that. It really would only take one. Something solid to roll around in my head. Something to smile about while the jug boils.

[  ].

In my head you’re sitting on the couch at a work friend’s party. You’re wearing an old, well-kept t-shirt in support of some local band; I don’t know if they’re together anymore, but you wear the shirt anyway. It’s dark outside—the kind of dark which accounts for urban light pollution—and the light inside the living room feels hollow, a buttery, synthetic orange. Each bulb glows overhead like a desaturated sun. And you’re there, thinking of me. Perhaps we haven’t seen each other in a while and a song has come on—one we never explicitly spoke about but you might have heard it on the radio or wafting out of a shop as you travelled to meet me, or else just after we said goodbye to each other, or else some other time when you were compelled to recall my place in your life. And of course I’m not at the party; I’m somewhere far enough away that it aches, though not so far away as to be truly inaccessible. You decide to call me, and you decide to leave the party, but it’s especially vital and insightful that you call ahead, because you know I don’t like to be caught by surprise in my own home, and to know those details about someone is to love them, or at least to have loved them once. And you come to meet me, and I open my door. You are tall, and backlit by the streetlamps with their staticky halos, and you seem nervous, but resolute. And warm. And I invite you in. And we’re so happy to see each other that we end up talking past one-another in our earnestness—or else we’re so happy that we cut immediately to the quick. I’d love a night like that. It really would only take one. Something solid to roll around in my head. Something to smile about while the jug boils.


Tate Fountain is really cool, actually. Her academic research won the David Wright Prize for English (2019), and her short fiction was Highly Commended in the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition (2020). Her most recent poetry can be found in Agenda, Starling and the Minarets Annexe.

Please note that due to its formatting, ‘break/fast and mend/slowly’ is best viewed on a tablet or computer.