Australia

Where the furniture of my childhood still lives

Broken bits tucked into crowded cupboard corners,
Of decades darkened drawers

Waiting for yesterday, or a knowing nail
To prise open the purpose of all that past,
To put together the pieces, to make whole the hand

 

In the land where birds cry out in need of counselling:
'O Oooooh, O Oooooh'; 'Mwa-ha-ha, Mwa-ha-ha'
And politicians mimic the madness, like a gaggle of gormless gatecrashers

Where bush: thick, monotonous and unruly,
Covers the coast like pubic hair
In need of regular, wholesale grooming by fire

While the yoke centre gapes, stretched thin and dry
An open wound of rock and dust - the colour of rust -
Painfully pulled end to end on the rack of the outback

Where all the world's suns come to set:
To sink, to rest, to forget -
Where the furniture of my childhood still lives