i found my father on his bed flat out on his back
in the dead heat of january/ two table fans left
running in the large kitchen/ steel blades stirring
up the hot air highways for hornets searching for
spiders/ ZIRRRUM a big fly zapped past my ears/
& past my father's open mouth snoring like a bush
pig/ his low & throaty breath thundering through
the house/ the sound blown around by the hot air
fans & the bright scrub light from outside leaking
in through shutters/ & the twenty-seven kilometre
out of town air drowsy with wings/
dad on his back
in his torn green shirt/ splashed with animal fats
hot sauces & pickled onions/ which had spilt down
over his chest the night before/ as he tipped the
huge jar up missing his mouth/ now the empty jar
on the kitchen floor rolling backwards & forwards/
rocking the still point of the hungover house/
& dad's white legs viewed from the loungeroom/
coarse dark hair on his swollen calves bruised
with blood/ from when he'd been out chopping wood
& had put the axe through his legs/ cigarette ash
dust on his forehead & the smell of stale garlic
beer or whisky/ & his red kelpie smoky lying on
the fluffy blue rug beside his bed/
& the ghost
white gum coming in through the kitchen window/
searching out the last drops of moisture clinging
to the orange wettex or sides of sink/ my father's
thick waist rolling over like prehistory in layers
of sheets & twisted grey blankets from a stale
sydney marriage entwined about his hips/
i break
cobwebs that hang like thick nets over his bed/
my father will wake as the first heavy raindrops
hit the window glass like sobbing from the dry
southwest/ the house has filled itself with the
swelling of his throat & air through fan blades
& through cheeks/ i shut the doors to his bedroom
that have let too many landscapes in/
after two
hours of working my face was not my own/ it had
become my father's face in the midday sun/ after
the tough & stupid labour of clearing the yard of
pigweed/ & of sharp balls of roly-poly bush that
blew through the caged emptiness of the meat house/
lingering in the blazing determined blankness
of amphetamine/
later that day i took my vegetable
soap & canvas bag with its copper nozzle & showered
away from the house/ one step up onto a dry plank
platform walled in on three sides by grey fence palings/
the hard boiled egg which i had left for the brown snake
under the driftwood had been broken open by a bush rat/
i avoided the sticky clumps of spiders' web hanging
in corners with their old cemeteries of husked &
mummified insects/ & protruding grey tacks & long
orange rusty nails jutting out/ i soaped up my
scalp letting the tank water wash over my brown
skin like a sudden shower drenching bark/
the land
became yellow & remote & silent with a backdrop of
purple thunderstorms building up in the southwest/
& worlds of sky away from my showering the dark
grumble & collision of clouds/ a grey hare pounded
across the dry scrub & i heard it thumpthump thump
thump thumpthump/ my pulse raging along through
twisted dry tree roots/
i walked back across the
yard/ my old cotton towel wrapped around my waist/
a brown snake slid out onto the track a few inches
from my feet/ the head & tail of it buried in the
long grass either side like a skipping rope/ dad
grabbed his twenty-two but it was too late/ the
snake had muscled into dead scrub to become its
still low landscape/
later that night the electrical
storms surrounded the house/ & sections of bruised
sky flashed their light like ruined teeth caught
in branches & clothes lines/ & dark trees like
shadowy forks of lightning stuck up from the red
clay/ & sky lightning like upside-down branches
jabbing their prongs into rivers & water tanks/
into the wide-eyed liquid of sheep or down into
the empty bush dunnies inhabited by fluorescent
green frogs/ or into the precious collected moistures
in the bases of burnt-out tree stumps/ & by the small
kitchen window the frantic tapping of the ghost gum
trying to get in/ & the flash of lightning moving
out across the landscapes like searchlights/
my father was active in the cool change/ smoking
like a gidgee log & varnishing the old chest of
drawers that we had bought in dubbo/ a few heinz
variety dogs hanging around his swelling ankles
the bottle of whisky & ashtrays/ my dog toby trembled
under the bed for two days whilst the storm struck
down vertical on the plains/ in quieter moments we
could hear him under the bed licking his pads for
hours/
the night-time insects didn't arrive for the
house lights/ i thought of them drenched flat
somewhere out in the scrub/ in the quiet & clamped
shut beaks of birds frozen in branches with saturated
feathers/ or jewel-armoured flattened against the
rough stumps of box trees/ & the big moon split
down its middle as lightning would crack open an
egg into splinters of membrane/
the hard granite
wind rushes into all available openings/ past the
unhinged doors of abandoned shearers' quarters &
by decades of gates shutting them behind itself/ &
along the dry grass & up into the treetops if it
was a high wind & lowly under the collapsing
floorboards of the shearing shed/
or through the
large gaps of driftwood moulding on the holding
pens/ & past the tired old steam tractor & through
the fleece & bottles/ & past the fluttering owls
or the snaky red fox disturbed from its curled up
position like a red ribbon unfolding/ its slimline
torso & tail held high like a streamer/
& through
the tan feathered breast of a hawk or a wedgetail
with a blink of its yellow eye/ through the river
red gums flowering with cockatoos & under their dry
old beaks & through their crazy white combs/ & along
the centre of the river blows the wind with rain
behind its rushing like a wet bushfire/
wind in the
rooves & under the verandahs of culture or of nature/
wind in the cupboards through a rattle of crockery
or a tinkle of cutlery/ encircling the sink & the
plughole & down through the tap & the air vents comes
the wind with the voices of children from sheep
properties/ & a long low wind with no voice but its
own unnerving distances/
with no voice but the things
that were moved into action by it/ like meat ants
blowing off the drainpipes/ their tiny black legs
unsticking & their brush across my cheeks in a
cyclone of microscopic characters/ & willy wagtails
tossed & shingle-back lizards & blue-tongued skinks
dragging along scales in the hard blowing grass/
& the crisp washing on the clothes line being thrown
up like surrender/ & my own hair tossed up into
the sky like black fleece to tangle in the branches
of trees or of lightning striking down/ even the
high outback stars twinkle louder as if the wind
has blown their twinkling/ & circling bats are
knocked off their courses & blind navigations
around the ceilings/
& the dog's water dish scrapes
along the cement & hits the fence like a stone &
the wind rocks my holden & rocks my foundations/
everything loosens & shakes at the sky blown forwards/
& the storm is thrown down over the land leaving its
silence behind/ & the next day a magpie appears in
the blueness to sing out in the silence & a kangaroo
thumps the dust with her heavy red tail
