1400 words give or sell / i opened a fruit stand

just to squeeze these blue cherries between the sunlight

& my splintered thumb. behind the fruit stand: bendigo or

something like it / catholics in tracksuits / dusty bookshops

tearful pergolas / real estate agents chatting to jane

       on a night out

in ballarat & dodging the swollen footpaths at 2 am

we took the mild party back to the airbnb / that was

another night you weren’t around / you were closer

to yass & mild hills caressed by the tractors / lined up

like lovers in the 70s / before drones. next to babbling

creeks. tv was more straightforward then

       sometimes you were on it

rattling up old anglican ladies like bags of plain

salt chips. i can imagine standing there too but i wasn’t

we were more watching it from a lecture theatre / unimelb 2009

how many hearts are seared on the grill. how many eyes

are closed in the heat. in newcastle

       your white shirt catches

a coal tan & you decline the benevolent scholarship

the thing is we don’t understand institutions / they’re as

populated as buildings / just as susceptible to dry winds

wicked storms. i’m a pile of essays punctured with

wine marks & staples & you’re the

master of grills. later on

       springsteen spends 21 mins

dancing with rosalita & we’re the nicest people there

no / just a bit high / just a small dream in the clouds crowding

ngannelong / just a little unfinished museum business in the

far-off drought-struck carpark / that’s an ancient creek bed

no wait it’s just a ditch & laugh at the blue jeans

falling over in the dark. on tuesday

       djokovic’s camped out at fed square

clare land orders gyoza / johnno shane me & the

constabulary & you float neatly above the shaken-out

semi-tragic cult-status street / it’s called swanston

actually / called every parrot down to the

       front pews / jimmy watson’s

to break nuts pizzas spritzers straws on the table cracking up

under the weight 14 laughs & 28 hands thumping it in a

sunny friday-night wind. we take some snaps

       wild cars coarse by