Then,

My father,

Six foot two,

Shoulders back

And proud.

With blazing hair

Of orange gold

And hands

Like obliterators.




He takes me

In those quiet hours

Not far, too far

From sleep,

Crosses me

Across his chest,

And sings me

Through the morning

Drive, with the streets

So dark

Blue

And empty.
And at the tracks

The station lightly humming,

He tells me tales

Of the men

Who drive

Those dirty trains,

Across this dry

Flat country.
As the steam

Comes rushing up

Swallowed by

A starlit sky,

And the rails do their shrieking,

He lifts me up

Like Holy Cargo

Up Up

Into the cabin.

I wait for him

Then, there,

To come lurching up

Behind me. 
He does not come.

Work ahead. The day has just begun. 
These men

Of lore

At their gears,

Turn to

Further tales.

This time

Of ten foot horses,

Bellies big with

Human corpses,

Of towns where

Water runs like blood,

And the ladies

Yes!

They’ll take

To bed

When this

Ironclad

Centipede

Settles

In the west. 
I am only seven then

But so much younger

With my mother

In my eyes;

Those eyes

We share

To this day,

Blue

Soft

And yet

Resilient. 
They do not know

That what they say

Means nothing

To someone

So small. 
In the cabin,

I sit back

As the first

Lines

Of sunlight

Hit

The railway

Lines

And the dull

Shimmer

Of the

Rails

Become

Forces

Almost,

Immutable. 
These men

They carry

On

Through tired

Work,

Carry on

And on

With their sad

Little tales

Of the uselessness

Of women

Of the futility

Of youth

Of the idiocy

Of dreams

Of the madness

Of age.




They do not know

That what they say

Means everything

To someone

So small. 
And in the

Perspex horizon

With the powerlines

Like visages

Of founding fathers

I watch my father

With his arms

Of light

Dancing

Subtly

Jerkedly

Angrily. 
The lines

Beneath his feet,

The steaming shriek;

This body moving forward. 
And, complete,

As he takes me from the cabin,

My feet dancing through the sky,

My body then, pulled close to him

Crossing his chest

Like a young fault-line,

He says in the mockery

Of only a true man

In the good

Old days

Women were

Like packhorses,

used to shovel the shit.
Ah, the good old days. They sigh. When men were really men.
Their skin

Their skin

Like glass with sweat

I could not say a word;

My mouth

Like a fine line

Across my face.



Some years

Later

When girls

Have become

So real

To me,

Their shapes

Glorious

Stitch lines

In the fabric

Of all else

He

Tells me,

(his head growing bald now),

At the kitchen table

Many times

Like it is the first time

And the last time,

Every, single, time,

That

Women are like horses

Always getting in

The way.
Silence.
His jokes,

Even then

(a boy as big as a man),

Are bones of meat

Stinking, ragged

Remnant

With the flies

Circling

Diving

Falling

Rising up,

The dull

Immutable

In their million

Beaded eyes.







It is when

I’m twenty eight

And these women

Will no longer

Have me.

And the lines, I use, like trench-lines,

Are the lines

That my father

Left me. 
And as

I talk

Of broken hearts

Of the bitterness

Of being

Alone

But wanting

Nothing less

In the early

Hours after

Everything

Else
He says,

Son,

Women are like

Riding horses;

If you fall off one

Get on another

And soon

I’ll guarantee ya

you’ll forget about the first.




And I sit

There thinking,

All twenty-eight

Of barren nothing,

In this town

Where I always end up,

What is with

This old man

And the bloody horses?




So I

Ask my mum,

Secret keeper,

What’s with

His equine obsession?
But my mother,

Her mouth

Moving

Like strings

Across her face,

She doesn’t know,

Besides to say

He used to waste

His pennies

On the ponies

Always begging

For the big

Buck bux

And never

Winning nothin’.
Everyday,

My mother says,

He was there,

In his early twenties,

Flapping his tickets

About

Subtly

Jerkily

Angrily

Like a sullen pelican

Wringing out its wings. 



And so now,

My father,

Six foot two,

Stooped,

One hundred and

Twenty kilos,

Drooped,

That golden hair

Gone white and grey,

That golden hair,

Gone white and grey,

And thin

So thin
A deforestation

Revealing

The lines

Across his scalp. 
Those lines

There, almost immutable,

Dulled somewhat

By the quiet question

Of age,

Like fault lines

Like trench lines

Like track lines

Like stitch lines

Like power lines

Like blood lines

Like,

Almost,

A life-line

Between us.




For

Father,

In denial,

Voiceless now,

The glue factory

Is coming.