flatlined, flatlands

on the back steps, instant coffee from your

father’s mug, sky wrapped around

the city insistently, temporarily

uncalibrating your horizons. old muffler &

surplus star-pickets rusting on the slab

that housed the shed we never got

approval for (poured where, even further

back, the lemon tree was). everything’s a

cyclone risk. haruki carts a brick around.

downstairs, remnants of posters in what’s

left of your room at the end of what used

to be his workshop. memories configured

like a map. this gifts you basic navigation,

though no guarantee of the best route.

as if, even now, you thought there is one.

thirty minutes south of cairns, the boy

wants to know when we get to australia.

mate, we’re already there. (some of us

never left.) so where’s the big dog? &

where does this road go? how long until

we get to nana’s? are we going home

tomorrow? not tomorrow, no. hired hyundai

turns onto pilkington street, kilometres

of small business, all riding on the hoon’s

back. home again, home again, jiggity-jig.

stella in the midst of her reign of terror,

hana squealing every time she comes near.

thursday morning, you try to triangulate

the clothesline, one arm taken out in

althea, bodgied-up & still standing, forty

years on. a modest history hung on a hills

hoist. everything was somehow smaller

back then, now distance is elastic &

relative & you meet distant relatives as the

kids jump & jump on the trampoline &

this is where you came from, where you

always are, even if it’s not where you went,

not where you’re going. on the back steps,

instant coffee, father’s mug. photographs

& heirlooms & the stars fill the sky the

way the sky insinuates itself into the city.

all these years remembering auntie von

twisting your ear, & tonight she swears

that was kevin, not you, carrying on

like a pork chop in the war memorial,

sydney, 1979. dad’s car under a tarp

under the house. stella & cal whining to

be let in & the kids crashed out in the

back room, everyone just a little sunburnt.

fleas & not so much the smell of dogs as

how quickly you start to stop noticing.

the bulletin still running the same letter

from bigoted, north ward, who believes

everyone deserves respect (for a strictly

defined value of everyone) before the

tiny belch of hate. not all that different to

the keep japan japanese crowd in the end.

standards must be maintained after all.

not that i’ve come to take your jobs or

steal your men or women. don’t forget to

stock up on vegemite & stare at the island

from the strand. up talking with mum

until early every night, the dog stirs

occasionally, the kids, too. instant coffee,

father’s mug, you smoke kools on the back

landing as mum’s voice fills the kitchen,

mary & arthur & skippy & quinkie &

grandma nielsen & auntie nell & on & on.