Vic Spandrio: ‘This is Not a Fire Sale’

This is Not a Fire Sale

I tell myself
this is not a fire sale,
not to discount
the hollow chest
of drawers
frowning at the lip,
the toppled stroller,
or smiling blue horse
on the mouldy carpet floor
where a child
learned to walk,
in the makeshift
aisles
my jerk neck
and eyes
gloss over the spines
of paperback books that look
like they could talk,
and the walls
with wallpaper
decorated in purple-red hearts
with little more to say,
laid over a plastic coffin
of electric cadavers,
like a flag
for a felled gum tree
the surgeon river
cut with brown blade
searching for a pulse,
in this paradise
awash
no price tag
can recount the cost
no government-funded grant
or heartfelt speech
can divert the maggot flies
from the city
and its rot,
or replace
the kitchen sink
of memories
that sinks
deeper in the mud,
an old woman
wading through the rubble
who I find
still has the strength to smile
says we have to keep going
we can’t fall
in a heap,
but the piles
grow like palm trees
on both sides of the street,
and shuffling off
with her dog
their tails
close behind,
I remind myself
this is not a fire sale,
this is only half of what was lost
in the flood.

Vic Spandrio