Sydney Red Gum
The tub in our shared bathroom would have
a waterline rim of grease and flakes of black skin
if he bathed before me.
Too embarrassed to complain of Nigerian habits
I scoured the bath before my daily use.
The small kitchen we students shared,
from time to time was full of gorgeous black girls,
their bubbling laughter fused
with the stink of west African fish-powder stew—
later consumed with much noise
and evident appreciation in his bedroom.
Once, lacking my own, I used the last
of his butter for my meal. In attempting
to apologise next day for my misdemeanour, I found
he would have none of it, beaming with pleasure
at the cue I had given for him to explain
I had discovered the African way,
that he should have—who needs it most.
It was as if he scratched my white skin
and underneath had found it black.
(Transnational Literature)
Many international visitors came
to the mathematics department on study leave the secretary told me of one...
They are here in hundreds of thousands
padlocks with names inscribed or printed bold in light-fast ink. We imagine couples pledging...
Saying goodbye at the train on his last visit to Brisbane
I remember my father fixing me with steely eyes, as if he were...
Frequently I pause at a regenerating patch of bushland seeded
with surface soil from a not far distant forest and guess at the identity...
first I saw the dog then the form of a man threading its way noiselessly through the close-packed forest of gym machines...
The tub in our shared bathroom would have a waterline rim of grease and flakes of black skin if he bathed before me...
Enveloped tightly in food
mingled with indigestible sand.
Eat, the only way to move...
In general, none of the things with a given natural property can be trained to acquire another. Aristotle Ethics Book 2, Ch. 1
While I’m sitting at the kitchen table, she comes bustling through...
The sky is always dark and heavy as a stone, the streetscape is unlit,
inhabitants, it seems, have no desire
to have it any other way;
Were I buried unconscious,
face downward, on waking I
would think the sky below me,
for normally people are
buried with respect, face up...
While we supped the soup, my mind was wandering as usual, only fragments of conversation catching my attention...
Body still, tense, only his
eyes danced with the fly until
it paused. Too fast to follow,
his cupped hand swept like a swift