The new house
last night in a dreamyou sat on my bedin the new house
hidden in my bedroomwe pretended I was sickhis anger on the other side of the wall
your creased fingers stretched then clenchedyour soft pink face weton the lino daisies dared not move
and the plywood wardrobe doorits thick lacquer of varnishthe shell of your modern hopes
in the dream we moved off to a petrol stationsat on the brick wall in the sununder Mobil's red Pegasus
unnoticed and warm
What will they?
We leave this house of their growing to enter the houseof our aging and they, what will they rememberbest? Five in the bed on mornings without sport,busybusystopstop, 'Marco!' 'Polo!' 'Marco!''Polo!' on the other side of the fence, the hospitalcalling at night, the wooly bush Christmas tree?Will they miss the light through the vine, the Robinia'spopcorn snow, the sacred bamboo where we watchedsinging honeyeaters grow, the cat kept inside?The year everyone died? A rosemary roast,my marmalade curdling, yeast breathing out on the sill?Who knows what they will remember?
From five to six we've grown since the July wedding —that was the beginning of this house's shedding.
The city
Our Lady of Perpetual Retail lives herepilgrims arrive to the hiss and gush of bus brakesand it is always the liturgical season of steel
dockets fly like white mothswe communicate in glancesOur Lady of Perpetual Retail lives here
all the lost apostrophes hang in jewellers' windowseveryone carries their own mirrorthis is the liturgical season of steel
even vacancy has a price;only the food is anointed in oilThe Lady of Perpetual Detail lives here
T-shirts advertise our shape and size —it's the Royal Show without the horse shitYou have every reason to steal
in spring Boronia brings its breath of silentspaces not for sale in this templehere it is the liturgical season of steelOur Lady of Perpetual Retail lives here
This autumn morning
the blue grey river full of moon,a swan dipped to graze on a shore I couldn't see.The scroll of neck, velvet black sinew,slipped silently between wet and unwet.
Such grace:the unravelling of an Sand its perfect retraction.From the red beak,a single drip of river.Beneath folded wing, a peekat white feather.
Such gracewas all it took to undowhat was submerged.
Grief floated,shining — salt on my tongue.
Pemberton mist
here the evening air does not forgethow much it rained last August
I return middle-agedwalk familiar streetsunrecognisedsomeone wearing a hat
the karriamong a scribbling of greensnude in vertical suedethe sun's must
a boy with long blonde hairlopes away from the bushis school