States of Poetry NSW poems
for Ian
And suddenly:
the men
are holding beers
and standing round
the trampoline,
and not the barbecue;
turning over toddlers,
instead of steaks.
The women
make the salads.
Fiona Wright
Recording
for Eileen
The light's older
in these sandstone suburbs,
jam-thick.
A clipped-haired man held a dog leash
saying one of us is single,
and even the leaves
had hunched their shoulders
in the gutters.
A waiter, golden-brown as a bread loaf,
squirted water at the pigeons
that sat cock-headed at the tables. My tart
Strange, that there are sequences
we live as cinema, if I looked
over my shoulder
I might recognise the front wall
of my bedroom
opened out towards the camera,
my furniture as hollow
as a stage p ...