A bit overdressed I thought, it would be cold up here Green parrots and pink galahs On the lawn, amongst bare-shouldered trees Each fossicked seed a new returning soul Borne into uncanny blue In startled opal fire Coins in my pocket (for you know who) The weight of unpaid debts That lock of hair the colour of the dead Swollen gums we used to hide behind Full of street cornered threats and invocations Some broke sticks of chalk to write On the footpaths and the walls Nothing particularly legible Sad and lost and proud held lines With that difficult kind of joy You get in wreaths of disarranged native flowers Coming down, high and desolate ways A cattle truck swagger The blind menace of hungry chrome Eating every crow-crookèd road The hills old dog dun and brindle backed Swaying like a mercy Scythed my mourning face In another town Faraway Nowhere to the sea Through the rust stained eye (Thought of) hurricanes and Carelessly dropped ice-creams Fragments laved away A new day’s shining face An endless broken promise Never going back Got those old commissure scars again From too much hard smiling
