I had often lingered by the Torrens and in transport
closed my eyes to sample Popeye’s pleasure boat,
as I knew it then. Or punted with the faculty men
and painted our initials on a Heysen tree—
all revered thereabouts coming into the light.
Not knowing or not caring, who can say?
Now I find shadows lengthening. In tribute
to an interloper in the Women’s Memorial Gardens,
I had read all of Max’s verses one by one
but no one came to listen on the lawns and soon
in its westwards journeying the sun retreated,
the black swans rode on the river and I was undone.
