Her hands, that have worked in shearing sheds all across the land; A roustabout and then a wool classer until she left the shearers, to use these hands to work on the docks up north, learning to drive cranes and tie up the cargo ships to the docks, after they had ridden the hide tide into port to fill their holds full of iron ore, and this is only a snippet of her history of manual work and yet tonight, in this cheaply rented donger, her hands are gently caressing me.
In her early forties, she’s spent her life following the heart of her gypsy soul, job-drifting through a man’s world, a true disciple of Germaine Greer and yet she’s never heard of the revolutionary woman, nor is she that interested in feminism ideology despite being, by simply having the courage to be herself, one of its poster childs.
And while her smile is a woman’s, and her body’s grace is a woman’s, and when I dine on her other mouth, who opens up to let me deeper in, she twists and groans like only a woman can, she then arches her back and grabs the rear of my feeding head, with the iron grip of a working class man.
Thoroughly independent, she’s left her secret hold, and is now using her soul to redecorate this tiny room, but as the air conditioner softly whirs, she pulls me closer and deeply buries her head in my neck, like I was some sort of human cave offering her shelter from this storm.
Isn’t it amazing, she whispers, with her eyes closed, how good it feels to have another body next to yours.
For all her skills and despite her work ethic, she is now an economic refugee, cast out because her veins are free of their MNR vaccine. She’s already lost her job at the ports, and while she’s picked up another job, forklift organizing a yard, the job is well below her skill set as is the wage, which isn’t enough for her to keep living in this mining and predominantly, three jabbed town.
But it’s harder to move now, as she’s had family move here, and she has friends, roots, even though many of them can’t understand why she refuses to give in.
Maybe that’s why she’s holding onto me. We are like babes lost in the woods, taking a break from searching for the country we’ve lost, to try and get some sleep.
Even when she kisses me, it’s like a drowning person desperate to breathe, but by inhaling, deeply, she fills me with her precious air.
In the morning she rose and made us a cup of coffee and as I sat in the bed watching all of this woman, her gypsy soul offered me the rare delight of seeing her like this.
And I wondered as I watched the downlights shading the curve of her scrumptious bum, how many of the male workers she is, and she has worked with were craving to reach this view, or because they knew she was unvaxxed was she now seen as less, as something unclean, untouchable. If so, then I pray that in your new world I remain forever blind, for to me I felt blessed to be privy too her rare and secret sunrise.
This woman, whose freedom to be herself, is now being curtailed by a government that needs to steal it from her, for suddenly they are obsessed with culturally and economically destroying her world because they are so concerned for her health.
Then cups in hand she comes back to the bed, this woman whose body and story I have been exploring all night, and as she hands me my cup of instant coffee, which is all this motel room is offering, I say, I’m really loving watching you, and then, after she sits and kisses me, deeply, she says, “Good,” without her smile, “Because I want you to watch me too.”
Michael Gray Griffith
May 2022. Port Hedland.
The Deplorables Epic Road Trip
Wow
Magical Journey.
I often say to my daughter; using a stolen line from Harry Potter;-
" yer a writer Harry"
And so I repeat...
" yer a Writer Michael"
Absolutely captivating.