By Brenton Rossow

GENTLEMAN’S LEISURE SHORTS

Anger
After white teeth
And dust from clothes
Which made my nose drip
Wounded me before
Mango chutney arrived
And sent me back
Inside her three hundred year old family home
With a stack of lacks
And a gap-toothed grin
Sheepishly inquiring
About a polyester cuttlefish number
And gentleman’s bathing shorts
Which later fell to bits
After three and a half wears

GALLE

Damp walls
Drinking generations
Of hairy ankles
She picks a hibiscus
And teases
Red pollinated stamens
Against the nostrils
Of her brother’s cat

Underwater summer salt
Blue black shinny feathers
Of a currawong
A handstand inches
From the spines
Of a sea urchin
The cobra awakens
Milked fangs
As his master
Begs
Beside
The
Gate