Squashed Mosquito Poetry

I’m still defining co-creation and
how I want to apply it, though
to illustrate how it plays out
in daily life, it would be like
responding to your sore and stiff back
with yoga instead of a massage
or creating your own pesto
rather than buying it, in fact
co-creation encourages you
to grow your own basil,
watering it and making sure
it’s getting the prime sun.

Co-creation is participating,
an interaction, a dialog
it is walking along a street
and pretending to be
an old man with a bung hip
because the raised stones
are every second step
and when you walk on them
you land lightly on your right foot
and heavily on your left
you protrude a limp and feel
sympathy for the old woman
backing her behind onto the car seat
as if it were about to roll away.

Co-creation is accepting your own invitation
to walk out towards the sea
along the storm water pipes
and the wooden casings that
are themselves pretending to be piers
but without the boardwalk. They forgot,
or didn’t finish it, but there they are
inviting a wide groin strut
or a disgraced ambling of wet pants
between wide legs, tentatively
stepping, because confidence
creates a rash or ill-fortune.
And you reach the end but can’t
immediately turn, it’s awkward
and you can pretend you are looking
at the discarded spine ribs and pelvic bone
beneath you with some interest, is it
sheep, cow, dog? I don’t know.

But when I co-create, I can pretend I know
I can pretend I am interested
enough to hang around and
watch a surveying dog snuff its nose
into the heart of it and break
some delicate tension that held
spine and pelvis together.
I can assume an indifference
on the part of the dog, its tail
a drooping question mark
rather than an explorative exclamation;
there wasn’t even enough interest
to be jealous at my attention
or prying eyes. He leaves a loop
of tracks behind, I leave
a loop of tracks behind. That
is our dance.