ROSE STREET FRONTYARD VISIT
beneath the overgrown garden of rose bushes
planted by the newcomers/ i found the old
jagged pieces of concrete aligning the fence/
like grey shark fins burying themselves
into the ground/ & one side trellis still
intact & the 1960s backyard concrete cracked/
every crevice jammed with the metallic pulp
of insects from rainy weather or garden hose
drownings/ overall the house was still the
same/ but it was like trying to find life in
a dog that has died/
the peaceful brown eyes
like windows looking back upon its past/ &
for a while we linger by those soft brown
windows as a way into the dog's stillness/
& we hang onto collars until hours or years
down the track/ the dog becomes deader &
appears to take on its own death in a more
final way/ we are left holding nametags or
small portions of fur which we put into
paper bags, cotton or plastic/ everything
must move on as we all must bury our love
& lose balance/
i crept onto the newly tiled
verandah & touched a concrete box where i
had played with my plastic animals & planted
sunflower kernels/ which bloomed into bright
yellow flowers reaching up into the blue
light of childhood & as big as the sun/ i
found the box empty with a memory of the
yard in the age of the sunflowers/ then i
came like a child to the front door & the
old steel doorknocker was still attached to
the wooden rectangular panels/
i knocked on
the door of something that could not answer
back/ like stroking the head of a dog above
its blank windows & whispering all the things
you would miss doing together into the space
of its ears/ & so i could hear the sound of
all the times our door was knocked on by the
outside world in the age of the doorknocker/
& the red brick fence was so much smaller
now that i had grown bigger like a shadow
absorbing the yard/
the people inside did
not hear my trespass/ as i looked into the
damaged back latch of number sixty-six in
the age of the letterbox/ mr poulton waits
for me & lights up a smoke in the overcast
twilight/ i turn away from the house unable
to bury it/ if another dog died i could not
throw dirt onto its clear brown eyes, drying
black nose & fiery mane/ i would turn away
& leave the body behind/ so it could fend
for itself & stink away to bones beneath
its cycles of weather |
