If out of our quarrels with ourselves we make poetry, what

do we make of our quarrels with Canberra? 

– Martin Johnston
a currawong pecks at scraps

but looks at me askance
my sunglasses slip onto my nose

from off my apparently polemical
gallery of hair – the bird becomes suspicious

across the lake
parliament house peers through

the crisp monocle of the capital
the tactical colours of a yacht club sway

in fig dark water

darker than a tea-tree bay
the pupil as a basin then

& I'm sucked into the lens
            sucked into the nest

            sucked into the cataract of the civic
the wide eye glazes over

a thin, darkening film.