With a reference to Mr Patrick White

Awake now.
Wandering beneath
a bat's escape ...
art decopauge
cardboard cutouts
herald my arrival.
Each one of them
buttoned up like my lips,
curtains drawn like my eyes.

No daring the intruder ...
rich or poor or over or under
indulged
and hardly a native tree in sight.
No way in ...
for hardly the light
is given the passswords.

Then through the glass door
but in reflection ....
so I turn,
a young man points
his outstretched finger
quivering
and from across Macleay St
says to me ....
"see the girl over there
with the cigarette holder...
she's taking me out
tonight" ...

oh summertime

a small scratch on the pavement
a can of coke in the sun
a double taking tourist
a walker on the run

no dripping towels at sunset
no afternoon soaked rain
this kings cross concrete summer
melts slowly down the drain