(i)
Snow is distant like death. A blond field of

wheat stubble stalk frozen after harvest. Heat

in the eye of the Nankeen kestrel that jump jets

over paddocks & locks onto mouse holes, thermals

raging as Westerlies plug in. Heat, the dust devil

city smothers New Delhi subterfuge in downtown

Melbourne. That peculiar afternoon light which

extracted pedestrians from Brunswick St shops

& fog bound them, though reversed naturally.
(ii)
Heat was between your legs before that race –

wet heat of fear & you didn't win, the frigate bird

chafe flared bright in the puberty reds, heat in the

hands you held, (St Marys) where tennis hill statues

sat unmoving, unkissing under the snowy haired

moon, heat in the lips of ridicule, cat guts tense.

Heat in the dishonour of taste, class food, uneaten.

A Marie Celeste of untouched grub, cheese hidden

In racing car caps, heat in discovery of shame.
(iii)
Heat going out of dinners & heat in the helplessness

of fathers, ransacked emotions spat as boiled water

that snaked down onto the two year old, heat in the

venom of quick atoms bouncing into each other ?±

jump-castle heat of energy in the typeface that printed

your father's agony; heat leaving bodies & going where?

Heat of difference, heat of statistics, cold heat of fluoros,

the heat of engines six storeys down, taxi alligators

prowled bitumen moat of Bowen-Bridge Road.
(iv)
On not having encountered snow, age 35, all that can

be felt is heat. Inuit metaphors meaningless in the heat

of birthplace, dawn heat of children, hot cords of uncut

blood, sapling placenta heat, eucalypt heat, heat of scalpel

& vein & dry creek bed. Howling heat of babies, eruption

of teething heat, your hot soul mate heat when you find it.

Heat of near misses. Collision heat of unconditional love.

Performative heat of this spoken language, I love you.

The kind of heat that kills snow.