domestic picturesque

so you can gambol down the domestic garden

paths where the fastest, most combustible

possums in the city, not asleep and yet awake

only for dazed hunger, eyes like gelatine icing

pronged halves of a glass infinity symbol

splay, you exit the subway from the tunnel

that leaks, the tunnel on the other side of the law courts

where yesterday confetti explosions were filmed

and the smell of herbal cigarettes filled the foyer –

the grey-watered grass is tall and apple skin hangs

from trees with Vs cut out to make room for power –

a glint of silver scuds along the tramlines

an old tram motor labours to carry no-one down Latrobe.

apple-coloured shipping crates hurtle towards

the docks on the back of a semi hawking smoke

from the way he held the wheel, you think the driver

is musical somehow, that he doesn’t always drive

and that the breakfasting woman doesn’t always eat

they’re notions that put you down on a broken bench –

then – never eat anything shining brighter than eyes

then – never count constituent parts of asphalt

on the way to work in the city, never look around

not even in gardens teeming with glassy infinities.