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Adrian Wiggins

After The Party

About the face she's photovoltaic.
“There's marriage to make men
lecherous,” she says, “I see it all the time

in characters like you.” Still, a casual mention
of the yacht by Lion Island sends her
into a lather. She's dramatic; American,

emphatic – tattoos and piercings in vertiginous
array, an anodyne piece of tinsel nonetheless,
and her structured hair is the bomb. A cigarette,

a shared song, a languorous interlude. She works
in a call centre – “it's not transcendent,”
she says, “not a bit.” You make to leave.

Well, she's blocking the exit. “In Russian,”
she sidles up, “the word for secret
is the same as for mystery.” Hmm

portentous – and it's too late to know
if it's really so – she doesn't want you though,
you figure that much, not beyond

this booze-raddled night. Somehow you get her
to the run-about, with a bottle of bourbon;
a twist of the throttle and you tear out

across Brisbane Waters, pinching luck, past
the oyster leases, past an old gaffer in a tinny
fishing the neap tide, threading a seam of silvery

water. Later, by some narrative device not herein
recorded, you proceed to the forecastle, from cuddling
to many acts of intercourse – lovely, burlesque.

Sentiment flows from you then:

Cherry blossoms floating
on a spring thaw stream.

Adrian Wiggins’ “After The Party” was first published in Cordite 28.1: Mulloway (2008). The guest poetry editor for this issue was Greg McLaren.
http://www.cordite.org.au/content/poetry/mulloway

Adrian Wiggins

Adrian Wiggins lives in Newtown, Sydney. His writing has appeared in Meanjin, Snorkel, Cordite and Heat. In 1997 he co-founded Cordite.

http://www.pureandapplied.net/adrian

A Typical Day At Work 

I'm a freelance information architect and digital strategist; a parent to three children; and a husband to one wife. I work from home and sit at a desk near the washing machine. When I'm not driving my family around to school or to work I design websites and do loads of washing at the same time. Website work involves sticky notes and sharpies. Everyone understands washing. I talk a lot in both roles. I'm 40, balding and getting paunchy. I'm not a gamer. I describe myself as a hobbyist poet, and remain hopeful that one day my writing will require a claw hammer, bench vise, and bandsaw. I already use offcuts.