for Amy TribeStowaways, all of us,
in the faux boat
up at the block.
The day is becalmed,
a sunset is up over Kooragang.
You say with a perfect rightness
that this is Larkin's park.
Our black dog strays, a gangly lamb
in the unmown grass, and the old sisters
begin their evening stroll.
When did we find the stand
of white flowers? Those close-belled,
stems springing like incongruous brides
out of the fringe of untidy bush.
Their text-book lushness recalled
water-meadows, nymph eyes, seductions.
They stood sentry to grave
stories we never caught,
wrapped in the grass and sky,
the sound of the swings.
There were many visits,
beating paths to the tamed patch,
before we learnt of the child
who died playing on the building waste.
She lost her balance and they built
the playground in her memory—too late
to learn to walk the length of something then.
Others trailed up here on Sundays.
We didn't show them the lost girl.
When they came the white flowers hid.
It makes me think they did not fall
into the wild pocket of this place like us.
We pushed our children high,
their feet flying out above the knock-off
at the distant factory, and sat on benches
with the sad watery genius that presided.
At home time we armed ourselves with sticks
to fend off the magpie guardians,
wished for eyes in the backs of our heads.