Graeme Hetherington: Three Poems

Gaol-Bird

I tracked a bird’s broad arrow-print

Around the bay to where it lay,

Crane, heron, or an egret near

Beached fishing boats, neck wrung to judge

From its head lolling back the front.

Then I chanced on and scared its mate

That rose into a tree to watch,

Coldly return my heart-felt look

Of sorrow, till away it flew

And I was left, a member of

A killer-breed to feel its scorn

For my apology for life,

The nature of existence, yet,

Descended from a class that wore

The same sign as its foot-mark, I

Thought also that we should be friends.

Beach Walk, Binalong Bay

A woman with a cut bruised face,

Perhaps from a “domestic”, has

Gone limping for a swim and left

A man to hold her clothes and wait,

To kick in a confusion of

Embarrassment, atonement, rage

The sand while scowling sideways from

Beneath a lowered brow at me,

Endangered chance witness to his

Emotionally explosive mix.

Afraid to pass I pause and gaze

Fixedly…