the cooee that comes back to you

us-two appear
shell skinned in delicate spring
all cheek chill nip and salt bitten

attuned to the tideline’s sheer
wash and correspondence
sublimated under a waratah sunrise
nudie naturalis

we are droplets
kissed being kissed
kissed
by

us
-two
be
come
a rush
of hot air
cool air skin
hand hair mixed
mythologies and pigments

our fingers tangle
untangling deep time
inscriptions odorous
emphatic rhythms of kelp
and deconstructed mollusc
self-organised cellular
refractions micro-lithic
carbon kingdoms

we find our feet
and collide in the first
ow or oh or oo the first
word the first cooing
and cooee
that comes back
to you

a tumble of laughter
and pipi stories spun
within our grandmothers

And the old fullas
whose faces resemble
the trace of mouth
and brackish lip
not a line but a circuit
articulating remarkable
formations connecting coast
and mountain through sea
eagle eyes soaring awesome

as all love spirals here
in autochthonous breaths
us-two walk this track
along the shore upriver to the core
and return a thousand lifetimes