for Tjama
1
with a gesture as large as the planet

you call up the spirits of women

tonight you can see them          thousands

filling up the country so it is

no longer empty
and lonely as it will be

when you are gone
and the multitudes no longer

dance across the spinifex
2
you were dancing

a slow skip

in the grand style

wearing a striped pointed hat

and white ochre

all your golden hair

cut to the grey
you go on without them like those

wounded in the leg

limping

dancing towards the embrace of the others

who limping

dance towards you
when the circles of recognition are complete

after days and weeks of sitting in the dust

you can get up          wash          go home

back to your places of employment
and the free spirit will burst

out of this belly of grief

into the air 
3
when you were young you went to law

childless but free
now the funerals string together

narratives of loss

                              how hard it is

to think any more of forever
sometimes

you want private you want

out          fold your shirt over your chest

and yourself up to sleep

your stomach hurts

with grief
when you were young and went about your business

who would have thought it would end

covered in white clay in a row of widows

seeing the land losing its people
your stomach hurts

and it’s hard to breathe