Light dries out on the white kitchen
Window frame, cold plain and dust, the hard world
Fiery on the east side, late on the west.
High on the high wall the shadow of a lion
Fur fur of a lion hung on a wall, a passing shadow.
I pick up a glass and look at the light
There are eucalypts and kookaburras and lyre birds
Fuck me, a series of days reaching into the desert
Every day darker through my old orange filter
A swampy river shimmering with laughter.
Out in the real I shiver in a bright way.
Pink camellia flowers fount over the 1940s
House-brick porch, last century collapsing into the present
As if each year were a flower all of a sudden
Catching the rays as they fall interminably forward
Over the roofline and into the garden,
Your chiffon number caught in the lavender
Glistening dew on the sticky wet seed row.
Tell me, were they in love back then, really like
They said they were, and are we
Felt like pollen through the rays, your hand on its descent
Leaving whirlpools of darkness in the air?
Easy bees navigate around, sip water from miniature beaches
Along the spring-feed creek,
Not a cloud in the sky, just white cockatoos
Spilt from snow gum limbs and sun flaring off the ridge.
I watch the breeze in the hair on your forearm,
A word on your lips about to take flight.