Geoffrey

A flat country voice

And dull red hair; someone

Should have called him Bluey

In that river town ten miles from Loxton.

He wakes early

In the white-lit ward

Watches in silence the baby's

Comfortable feeding. We exchange

Grins over burping.

Asleep with his hopeless nose

And ears, he is a granite knight

Chiseled on a bed of stone,

Gaunt and hopelessly misled.

Does he dream

Of the mother and brothers

Waiting for a house,

Of the father, somewhere, cherry-picking

In Victoria with the eldest boy.

Fremantle Arts Review 1986