1. Garden

All afternoon God is streaming
in the sunlight
casting his 4 o’clock golden ash
over the lawn
When he lies across the hibiscus
her body spreads

2. Forest

The pea-hen is writing
her story on the brown floor
The wombat is asleep in
the ground level of his grand tree-house

A paper wasp glides over
smooth water pebbles
A pair of rosellas
float out of the air

Look, the wattle
has shed her melancholy
even the kookaburras sound
less pugnacious

And there is little more that I want
than to be beautiful as a leaf

3. Kitchen

The chard’s
crayon stems
the parsnip’s
white fingers

Swede, bok choy, zucchini
peppers

I come home and place
everything on the bench:
broccoli, mushrooms, beans

blueberries like midnight
papaya in their Asian skin, the
laughing, sun-kissed grapes

4. Heart

That day, in the sun, my father
lay cold and broken in
my mother’s arms, the tenant
he’d had an altercation with
looking on. My mother shouted
strangers gathered
the ambulance came
the ambulance took mum and dad away

What does it feel like to hold death in your hands
as if it were a cup, or a fruit
What does it feel like to hold death in your hands
as if it were an infant, a shirt, or earth
What does it feel like to hold death in your hands, as if
you. were. still. alive.