Yawn
by Sarah Rice
Funny how a yawn travels through a room
a pied piper gathering all the rats
In that instant we all draw from the same source
a great swallowed gasp shoved into our lungs
like socks stuffed in a bag
and the long outward sigh
That we try to hide it up our sleeves
makes us culprits in common
like playing truant
with a friend
It’s mostly like this
our bodies that bind us together
despite talk of mind’s united
mutual goals—a Weltanschauung
No, more likely it is that we all pee
bare-footed in the night
with toenails that particular pale shade of shell
and a shadow pressed onto each heel
That at a certain point in the evening
we reel our shoulders in on tiny strings
to catch the small warmth of our elbows
and shrink our silhouette
We all lean the same way as the bus turns a corner
grow a wide-legged stance on a train moving
We all rise
on tip-toe
at the edge
of cold water
And sneezing scares us somewhat
those first few seconds when the breath comes in and in with no end
We know the mundane imperative of bowel
and the incredulity of a broken heart
Our bodies loosen in warmth or water
and we all leave hair on the pillow
We share in the first great O
our mouths make for milk at the start
And the milky grey our eyes
all turn at the end.
Sarah Rice is a Canberra-based art-theory lecturer, visual artist and writer, who co-won the 2011 Gwen Harwood poetry prize, amongst other awards. Her limited-edition, art-book of poetry Those Who Travel (Ampersand Duck, 2010), with prints by Patsy Payne, is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including Award Winning Australian Writing and Best Australian Poetry 2012.