Elizabeth A Martina Ryan

Gig Ryan] (1956 / Melbourne

His Desert Bequest

1.

Yeah cool. Some jape, like, totally bounced
One tic, he's fiddling with the cord
and then later, he's carked it
We were just outside, dreaming and nodding
He wanted to be there, eyes shut, grinning in his tower
I know what it's like, that white sleep
washing and reeling and then the next's a siren
thumping till you're back
I should've been there
his head's dropping china
like at Christmas when he cried into my back
Another city chills
Wind scatters the trees
and leaks into the flat

2.

Hands shake with the powder
The bus leaves the raining crematorium and you
in the blank coffin
She walks lilies on it
In store, a paltry horizon, the tilted tin urns
my friends bequeath. Here, the thick churn of their thoughts
labours to a soft pinnacle. The phone's sludge poisons night
The lamenting knots you in its ball
All the soil's thrown on his cheap wood
Gulls wreak ruined Matraville
You pick cards from the air to talk back
His soft cheek is warming in the dream and rises from the coffin like a joke
Mourning silences. Our voice coalesces
Bury me in your tune. Streets lack you
Cities wash into a drain.
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