Odes to the Street-walkers of Dili

i. The Pig

She has parked herself in the intersection
of tracks under coconut palms.
She looks about the size of a VW beetle
if you allow a little exaggeration.

When she walks, her belly waggles between her legs.
From below, she looks well-used; but her back and sides
have the black curve of a galleon sailing the coconut husks.
She represents vigour and life, like the Venus of Willendorf,
provider of piglets, star of wedding and funeral feasts.

She swaggers around her scrap-heaps, a blue-chip investment
but unassuming and humble despite her rich cargo of fat.
Long-snouted, barrel-bodied, her flat nose fussing the undergrowth.
When thin, naked children run past her tail wags kindly.

 ii. Goats

 There is something demonic in those flat, blank eyes
with their vertical pupil. A weird witchery,
a reason for the mad situations you find them in.

Down the coast, we found one up a tree.
She was standing alone on a branch, munching the leaves,
and happy enough despite the ten-foot drop
back onto the rocks. By morning she’d moved on.

You see them standing in the middle of stark cliffs
completely insouciant, as if they can call strange forces
to help in need. There’s a whiff of Salem about them
When we were in Solomon Islands, there weren’t any goats
but there was plenty of witchcraft, and once the Devil appeared
—according to news reports the following day—
in a nightclub as tired staff swept up after closing.
As they screamed and clutched one another, he boogied across
the dance-floor, stamped a shaggy leg, and vanished
leaving a cloven hoofprint branded onto the floor.
Behind all their meekness and silliness, you can tell they’re his cousins:
if you try to look through the keyholes of those eyes,
you’ll see all the crazy compliance of a familiar.

iii. Roosters

There are chickens in every direction. Flat-chested, thin,
but with muscular legs built strong for running away.
Stalking the rubbish-heaps, pecking the undergrowth,
trailing streams of chicks like a comet trails dust.
From under the bushes comes a persistent peeping
like dozens of unattended watch-alarms.
In the evenings, when the hens are finding a roost,
the boys go through the streets with fighting-cocks under their arms
or dangling upside-down from their motorbikes.
The Filipino foreman on an Australian site
transfixed his boss by describing, in envious detail,
the amazing magnificence of his best friend’s cock.

iv. Toby

Toby was rescued ten years ago as a puppy.
Some boys had cut off his balls and were hanging him
from a tree, when an expatriate drove past.
She rescued him, and he passed from hand to hand
until one Christmas he moved in with us.
Toby’s big for a local dog; he’d convinced other owners
he would only eat chicken. We taught him otherwise
before we realised dog-food was more expensive.
He’s fluffy and leonine, with a thin foxy muzzle
and a long plumy tail. “Asu bot! Asu bot!”
the children cry when we walk him:
Big dog, big dog. They think he’s foreign, like us.
Toby is princely and distant; he can knock with one paw
on doors, to get in and out, and on dinner-guests’ legs
when he thinks they’ve eaten enough and should give him a turn.
He is quiet and docile, and rarely growls or barks.
But he takes his revenge, whenever a dark-skinned man
or boy comes near enough to bite. Toby is racist and sexist:
the compound nannies and cleaning-ladies love him.