1. Jacaranda

That November
we floated through the streets of Adelaide
in a celestial haze of Jacaranda.

Outside the church
the hearse waited impatiently
draped in its pale mauve shroud.

Inside, your coffin hovered,
preparing for its lift-off
while we trawled through
our memories of you
as if our acts of remembering
might impel you
to return.

2. Listening for the past

Listening for the past
is no way to spend an afternoon
when boats scud across windy bays
families ricocheting around parks
speeded up days.

Yet I still hear
my mother in a kitchen
flooded with the smell of baking scones
listening to ‘Portia faces Life’
from a cracked bakelite near the kettle.

My whistling father
bending over strawberry beds,
bees buzzing in blue salvia.

Or I hear too much silence
in empty college chapels,
the wack of leather straps
on young boys’ hands,
their stifled sobs at night.

The past can be so selective,
a country of smudged memories.

Sometimes,
the past is unpredictable.

3. I lie Down

At night I lie down
and dream of love,
wrapped tight
in the muscled arms of men.

On crowded railway platforms
men with olive skin
smile at me with green eyes.

In low-lit back streets
men in linen suits
pass me messages,
written on café napkins,
stained with red wine
or is it blood?

A man with hair alive
like electric snakes
passes close to me,
touches my elbow, then
stands in a doorway waiting,
his breath on my neck.

Men stamped with tattoos
of skulls and knives
whisper in my ear words
that can never be understood.

Love is a perilous country.
Innuendo lurks everywhere.

I still remember the orange sunlight
scorched in strips across white sheets
and your limbs arranged
an impassable mountain range,
the humid air carrying promises
of kisses more articulate than words

Each night I lie down expecting.

4. Apocalypse

I once saw Gaddafi dying
on a Samsung wide-screen
waiting at the New Hong Kong
for pork and plum sauce
with four steamed Dim Sims

In aisle four at Safeways
searching for Indian pickles
my I-phone announced
refugees streaming out of Syria
clutching bloodied babies, clothes still on fire.

Down on platform nine
we lined up like glittering soldiers.
Someone announced the Apocalypse was late,
signal failure down the line.
Luxury car ads flowed on a perennial loop,
sponsors mouthing cheery messages, like
mouths of vacant clowns, accelerating.