Biggera Creek
Beyond the road, through shin-gripping grass,
a crowd of eucalypts
surrounds a half-pipe, the ribs of a whale
spine-down, frozen in cement.
The ground was strewn with bent tea-spoons and
improvised bongs, leaves fallen
so long they’d composted beneath the weight
of leaves more lately shed.
We’d hurl golf-balls against the curve,
they’d bounce in reflected arc
and in diminishing period:
we’d throw them at each other,
blunt pain embossed into the skin.
In the narrow creek,
a ray swimming, serene against grasping
muskgrass; my friend pegged
a ball but missed, and steady it went
past upturned trolleys, then past
back yards, past jetties, into the sea-grass
meadows of broader water.
