The particulars of the evening being, whether consciously
        evoked or – 'a great shemozzle'
                     as Kent said –
          merely one day washing over and into the depths
                          of the plane tree
and those other trees of
        darker green
              whose names I don't claim to know – the pissing
                 possums don't know them either
so worry not – and the block of cream
         apartments where one half of Gert
'the writer' Loveday
lives –
              'Thou art not possum nor lemur nor
mathematician' –
                     that is, the particulars
– putting to one side money,
its lack, that sudden straining
for breath – the particulars
being exactly what they are
and mostly the same
as the last time
I looked –
          Frida Kahlo's face
upon a field of green
beads, a tanker's red hull
through palms –
sway on sweet palms
against the lying
of the Right – they don't,
but the last sun falls
on roof tiles, on the corrugated
iron of the carport, on
the plane tree's leaves,
etc –
the particulars can go
on and on, or run off
to flirt with Gert –
'cyclamen, sing awhile
with me' – I was thinking
of love in the abstract way
one sometimes does,
this being the hour of
my lungs for now and
ever after –
                 when you spoke behind Kahlo's face,
                                             'dinner's nearly ready – I'll just
                                                                                         have a shower'
                       and Edith Pevensey's eyes a green leaning
                           to gold in the 'luminous hum'
                                as bats take to sky,
                                       in the slow fade –
                                            fade on – of Tuesday's light

Cameron Lowe

Recording