when my father wasn’t

burying kumara peelings

he was digging a hole

in our Wellington garden

so we could join

our uncle in Fremantle
he drew a rough map

of Australia and wore it

like the prayer his brother wrote

I give thanks for the light here

it’s so yellow
they both took up fishing

standing all night on wharves

with roll your own filter papers

and tobacco tins

it was as if they spent

their lives chasing the same spotty
on very hot days

I often imagined

my uncle wearing

a knotted handkerchief

and saying like my father

time’s getting away
when he died my father

had jaundice he might

well have been the light

in Fremantle