The geese on our dinner plates

hung

but implied progression.
Would bear with me

as I declined, protested,

held fast.
Would still be there

next morning

under a cold meal,
‘I’m going to pretend

it’s a fried egg’,

I’d announce, meeting
the golden goose hunger.
Under the tablecloth

was sky-blue Laminex.
Under the table was ether.
My father slept in striped pyjamas

like all the innocent men,
his sighs filled the spinning, pin-pricked, backlit

house with the Apollo 11 Moon Mission, lifted it
like blackest, brightest America.

The moon as yellow as the film of gold
on Armstrong’s Zeitgeist visor, planishing

as my fingernail across the dripping bowl’s
Sea of Tranquility; and smiling Einstein

whispered ‘death’ into my little shell-like ear.
There is a stalking red fox in the loungeroom;

a Royal Doulton Flambé. I have decorated the net curtains

with green gold Christmas beetles and weightlessness.