Two Poems

International Relations

Another dull committee. A fire alarm
needing new batteries releases a mournful chirp
that echoes in the tiled halls, like birdsong in rainforest.

They call on me to speak, and name me Australia.
We discuss funding gaps and proportions of budget spend
and instead of taking notes, I sketch plans for an orchard.

The room is as cold as the arctic. Even the sky
looks wintry and grey through the bomb-proof film on the glass.
The woman next to me (Portugal?) whispers that she’s cold.

Why does my insomnia always lift during these meetings?
I sip coffee—they have made it bitter as death.
Someone puts up a graph on maternal mortality.

When presentations are done, we’re released with printed reports
and injunctions to fill out a survey on donor approaches.
Walking out, I step into the warm embrace of the sun. 

A pregnant clerk walks by, and I want to say Alin,
Little sister, eat some meat and visit a doctoro you won’t die during labour. But find I can’t speak. 

There are rows of tall palm trees, and rows of naked flagpoles.
The afternoon stormclouds are descending across the hills
behind me, but through the Palacio’s arched gates,

between pale jade stucco walls, under mock crenellations,
prinked out with butterflies, beyond the coconut-sellers,
lies a vast, impersonal, peacock-feather sea.

Happiness

The old dog
is asleep on a chair (privilege
of age)
when suddenly her tail, hanging down the side
lifts and starts wagging, and wagging,
in her sleep.