Because tending bar with Aussies in England

made me miss the sun

Tina Turner and Jimmy Barns were singing ‘Simply the Best’

at the Walkabout Reading franchise in 2005

when I walked out of my job.
The first Australian girl I kissed

told me she would never date a Yankee

which was okay

because all Australians are convicts

my ex-fiancee told me

and the reason Australia has such a low population

is because the animals and insects are poisonous.
I have two Australian poet friends.

Is Dan Disney poisonous?

Is Dom Symes a convict?

And if you are a poisonous poet

if you are a convict poet

does that make you Australian?

I wonder

if I went to Adelaide

and drank a Castlemaine

would I feel at home?
On my imagination telly

Crocodile Dundee and bloomin’ onion rings

play Australian rules in an Outback steakhouse.

Steve Irwin is the referee.

Though I do not know the rules

to Australian rules

I think Kath and Kim just scored and

Nick Cave is more German than Australian and

does every sentence sound like a question now?
Before you visit a country

it exists as a set of cultural clichés

and after you’ve been somewhere new

it feels a lot like everywhere else but

even though I’ve never been to Australia

I listened to Courtney Barnett’s Avant Gardener

so I know

they also have asthma and drink kombucha in Oz.