After ‘Death Zephyr’ by Yhonnie Scarce, exhibited at the Art Gallery of New

South Wales, 2017
We stand under the glass yams

black and clear, they sparkle under

the gallery lights, so still but in a wave

as if moving, as if blown

by the nuclear wind of the Maralinga

tests they whisper of, they speak to,

they keen and wail, the ghostly

not-tinkling glass
My baby girl reaches up

to the dangling yams, she loves

their shape and drop, their shine

This work is a memorial

for the artist’s people and country burnt

again by the British government

(the words of the wall plaque in my ear)
My mother’s words in my ear:

My grandfather, with the RAF, in charge

of the tests at Maralinga. He flew

out from London, leaving my two-year old

mother at home, to work and visit his brother

in Adelaide. He knew people were there;

my mother told me. He was a soldier,

a military man. He followed orders,

just as his father did. For him, it was the same

as Hong Kong and Malaya, the same

as dropping bombs

on Nazi U-boats in the Atlantic
I stand under the wave of glass

I am outside of it

                           I am part of it

the black zephyr and the white

Too visible under the gallery lights

Too seen

            in the silence

                           of those my grandfather chose not to see
My baby girl reaches up for the yams

She wants to hold them, I want her

to feel their smooth belly

and sharp point
But I pull her back, trap her hands

and watch only, from the corner,

as the death zephyr fills the room.