PRESS
I once preferred a keen and perfect
cutting edge, a right-angled sheet trimmed neat
with borders that might snick an errant
fingertip. I later played it safer, seeking
corners that were curved or bevel, the better
to deflect attack, embraces and attention.
My predilection now is for the deckled
indents of a homemade page, fibre-flecked
and textured like a slept-in bed dented
from the press of its residents, a set
of lovers well fitted to each other’s
folding flaws, growing more attached each week
as they fade and sag and grey together.
DOE
To our eyes, she escaped
the sheer scarp’s face,
minced across pebbles,
high-stepped over stones,
dainty dame, down to the wet
rocks, where in a graceful
squat, she pissed: a silhouette
shudder, unaware of our presence,
tail a slight swish; against
the backdrop of the Basin’s
sun-struck escutcheon,
a motive blot, then
a breeze traitored our scents
and she bolted, that flash
of white tail a beacon.
OUT
Out with the garbage, the fag ends, the clutter
Out with the eaten, the worn down, the odd
Out with the beaten, the shuffle and sputter
Of words half unspoken and feet poorly shod
Out with the photos, the journals, the clippings
Out with the fucked-up, the fucked-out, the dead
Out with the drivel, the dribble and drippings
Out with the starving and out with the fed
Out with the baby, the bathtub, the water
Out with the lambkin and out with the kid
Out with the innocent, out with the slaughter
Out with the bum, the rummy, the skid
Out with the shit-stained, the ruined, the wasted
Out with the shot and the clubbed and the shivved
Out with the pinned-up, the plastered, the pasted
Out with the landfill of a life half-lived
WATER WORKS
Forty-some paces into the Gulf
you’ll find the work of forty-odd years:
rings of rock that once cased cottage wells
where dwellers drew fresh water, sunk now
in the salt swell and swum around
by fishes. We get smaller year by
year. The breaks we build to brake our shrinkage—
riprap and seawalls, baskets of stone—
only make things worse: they make the patient
ocean more resourceful. Gone Panmure
Island’s marram-anchored dunes. Gone the wharves
of Basin Head. Gone the elephant-
shaped rock whose feet we shod in concrete
to keep him for the tourists.
Tags: Issue 77