a memory, Federal election, 2004
There are no more deliveries of earth
You cannot catch the sand, it won’t pour
from our prime fists into your dislocated hands.
Supply is bottle necked in the hours
that armless queens can shovel kings.
We close our eyes into this landscape with refuge lines scratched in last
on a canvas whiting out beneath square frames of glass.
The picture is the paradox of lucid sleep
You can’t switch the light on or cover your eyes
You can’t wake from him.
This is not a dream of skipping land
where the wind and rain are sung
it’s a shuffle in one place, the climate dictates
dead hearts vote in buckets
and are dumped from a Canberra window.
Originally published in The Age, 19/2/05.
