THE SMOKING MEN
cigarettes like ignited twigs/ against hard wooded
faces of twin rivers men/ backs curved forwards
like perching crows along the fence/ & daytime
heat receding/ like white horizon blown from brown
skin/ the night air settles in/ past the thirteen
empty doorways of the property's shearing quarters/
dad's voice from the kitchen: come in & put the
nosebags on/ brown arms & white legs in trousers/
supple sticks in big dusty riding boots/ & huge
dark hands calloused by years of bourke pub brawls/
the sunset is yellow, apricot, orange & mango/ i
am eighteen, lonely/ hungry in the heat that cooks
me in my sweat/ starving in the mauve & golden
spaces that can never fill me/ i do not want any
of them/ our faces glowing crimson mandarine/ the
dry & sunburnt backs of necks & cancerous noses/
already touched by the long stretch of evening/ &
the rich blue carpeted backs of cattle dogs lying
in the shade of fence posts/ & the far western
sunset citrus rind bending for us/ i want to follow
it/ to way out there/ to where if i walked far
enough/ i would only reach connecting rivers on
the back blocks & the black boar pig ripping up
roots in the olive lignum & the high flying
scream of cockatoo flocks/ blackness flecked by
red falling into blackness/ gone home to roosting
in some thin branched tree/ crowded into each
other's sleeping feather/ by the sub zero climate
of inland drought/ by the depth of space whose
stars give the illusion of warmth/ but i know
that those sky fires are dreaming fires only/ &
i remain in the company of smoking men/ their
shadows across me/ i would freeze to death out
here before dawn/ before anyone ever found me |
