OBSERVATIONS

After William Carlos Williams

It all hinges on two horses
one grey            one bay
reflected in the still water
of the dam at dawn,
on the botanist
under a black umbrella
in Hackney Road,
the multicoloured jogger
on a carpet of yellow leaves,
burnt sandwiches
in a school incinerator,
the shriek of wind in the sheoak,
the girl tripping to work
along Rundle Street
in time with a rondo,

and a pot of red geraniums
in a gutted wheelbarrow
above the soursobs
by the ashtray
with lipsticked butts.


Spindrift, 1997

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