The spidermoon burns

reddish-yellow yolky,

sleepwalking through nightfields,

a spinner’s tranced orb.

Trapezes drift on silk bolas.

Strands carry them a long way

to spokes, sticky spirals,

guyed trapdoors.

Wakefulness in shadows at dawn;

soft, quivering snuffle of a muzzle

nosing grass and bat urine:

the dog’s off the chain.
The bombora of Mount Chincogan

tips a green wave down to the yoga church,

and the amped-up ukulele player,

who busks for coins outside the IGA

with ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas’.

The check-out chick pops her bubblegum.

Lorikeets squabble beyond the library.

A parrot-man coaxes:

his shoulders are perches.

A galah oohs and aahs.

He feeds the bird clinging to him.

The flock beats wings to a harbouring.
Summer kneads trees

the colour of a bloodnut hamadryad.

Sunflowers glow more yellow

than fluffy sponge-cake.

Cicadas swing like pendant earrings.

Grasshoppers like fallen clothes pegs, leap.

Brush turkeys stalk a picnic sandwich.

Tiny lizards pause, scuttle, pause.

A goanna hotfoots it

over the brickwork of the barbie.

The hot tin roofs

make with their creaking cha-cha.
The air’s dry as a dog biscuit.

Stones clang under dusty cars.

The burning tar sports a shiner.

A water dragon’s clean-bowled,

spread across the road.

The bat some kid shot at

hangs by claws from a wire.

Birds twitter, rayed out

against the phone transmitter.

The sun’s hard-boiled in its shell.

A spinnaker of cloud gets the wind up,

and bolts for the wild blue yonder.