My son the frog-prince of fitzroy gardens

is running a temp, the poor mite has been tossing

and turning all day with forehead on fire,

eyes bulged more than usual but mind fuddled less than.

Please, he says,

please c’n I have a bit of cool?

So I lay him out in a heritage case that used to hold

his grandma’s spectacles with silver frames that sadly

dissolved in a cleaning accident with vinegar,

surround him with cotton

to soak up the sweat from his tiny web dactyls

and set out on what is sure to be a long haul

with streets way past bedtime, ice houses on bypass

and most cool-wizards asleep at home between clean sheets.
albert    →    lansdowne    →    victoria    →    brunswick 
□
Feverfew is a herb widely found in old gardens

and listed in the great herbals of history — the dioscorides

materia medica of ce 65 and by legend in the shen nung

pen ts’ao ching of bce 3rd millennium — for the formidable

potency of its demure daisy-like flowers,

temperature reduction just one of many attributes,

another, the regulation of day-night body rhythms

by its high concentration of the darkness hormone. 
□
The facade at Number 9 has turned to glass

with faces embedded in its brickwork, like in jelly,

neck up sans haloes, only animated, mouthing words.

Hi, says one, a hand appearing beside the face

to indicate the heritage case in my arms.

The lady says hi, I nudge my princeling.

A bit of cool to you too, he croaks. 	 
brunswick    →    gertrude    →    smith

↑                                                                    ↓

gertrude        ←    gore        ←    greeves
But cool, the same as truth, is like chooks teeth to come by

in back lanes or front, with not one of the other night seekers

having the skerrickest on the laying of patches

over my darling’s frantic little pumping heart
gertrude   →   fitzroy   →   princes   ↻   ↺   princes
and finally on princes lane I set the spectacle case down

on the bluestone gutter thinking surely

given the dire heritage situation

grandma would jump the cool-bar to help,

but across the tram tracks on nicholson the bombodieri

have begun stomping the soil of the furtive mound

and craters of goo pools have opened up

clicking, clacking, as spectators line up for the chortling frolic

stepping one and then one more into the glug

to be sucked deep into the earth’s fecund triangle,

tickety tack, are then spewed out again on mud geysers

as an airborne flotsam of body-parts that rains down

on watchers screaming in sheer joy at the bitsy

extravaganza, to then wait for the magician to come

forward and fit all the fingers and toes together again

happily like lego and maybe an encore as well

or two, when a hand grips my shoulder

yes, I think, grandma finally,

but it’s an eyehole mask above epaulets that fronts my swivel

and the shush finger right next to where the patches

should’ve been, or something, anything but this.

Please, I say, please. 
□
Feverfew also possesses the mysterious ability

to induce a type of cell suicide

that takes the form of a quiet folding-in

with none of the high drama that characterises

some other passings, even disposal of debris

a low-key merge into surrounds.
□
But my princeling raises his head,

it’s okay, he says, don’t cry—

blows a final whale-spurt of moss green stuff

—love you,

before turning to the shush finger,

please, he says, a little bit on the lungs,

and then the sighed passing of a gentle breath,

my silent tears, and from across the night-gardens

of fitzroy the whisper of an echo,

a little bit on the lungs, just a little—