for T & B
The year was ending where the lakes meet the sea.

Small preparations in the weatherboard; fish and lemon

with someone else’s Australian pop collection

as chalk-white boats headed out

through the sunroom louvers.
Adorned peninsula. Chained gates and laurel hedges.

Climbing down to the fishing village, last drinks

and last light disappeared from the lawn

of the waterfront hotel. The seasonal town

had slipped from its mooring posts. 
Such unperturbed companions, surveying

empty yards along the street. Claiming

the moonlit lime of the bowling green

to watch stars from plastic blades.
The long night loitered at shop windows

then reached back into the inlet.

It wound the boardwalk,

a slow reverie along black water

to the vacant resort pool; uninvited

and treading beneath its chlorine skin.
As midnight fireworks hammered

wry shapes into the bush land,

we made our assembly to the spectacle

for the crowd over the hill.