David Adès

Invisibility Cloak

In bed, I feel her body right there,
the firmness of it imprinting shape into mattress,

her breathing, the flapping wings of her lungs —

so it takes years for me to understand
that she shimmers like a hologram,

a love I can pass my hands through,

and what I think I know of her
is not knowledge at all,

not even approximation or semblance,

that for all the words, the language,
the mingling of bodies,

she is a ghost, a wraith

I move towards with all my yearning,
a mirage in the desert,

a watering hole from which I will never drink.

David Adès is an Australian poet whose most recent book Afloat in Light is available through UWA Publishing at https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/afloat-in-light.