and takes the name Dunedin

out of his pocket. Damp, damp, damp.

He has found his way to the place

and he has named it. November 1925,

and this is a play I am imagining,

a sort of costume drama, and it may

or may not be a good one. My father

has just turned 14, and he is here too,

watching a city appear in a moment.

A man steps ashore, Dunedin steps

into the muddy harbour – Lake Logan becomes a park –

and now it is March 1926,

my father still 14, and the Great Exhibition

continues. City of crowds and courts,

city of turnstiles! Night after night

my father sneaks out of the house –

past the pavilions of Empire, the plots

of scientific grass – and settles behind the hoopla

where he unscrews his brother’s hipflask.

Chocolates if you win, chocolates if you lose! 71

He considers the Scenic Railway,

the Caterpillar, the Whip. He likes to step

through the open mouth of the Fun Factory,

he loves the intoxicated cars,

and always he queues for the River Cave

where you can quietly cruise

past all the countries of the world in colour –

after which there’s darkness and ice

and that wild descent down the rapids.

Night after night he navigates

‘new pleasures every day’. Also

one day soon

the big attractions will be sold

to someone up in Auckland, and he

will be left with just his last tram ticket …

but in the meantime a man steps forward

and takes a piece of paper

from his pocket. Night after night

my father sneaks out of the house

and Dunedin is discovered. Night

after night the world begins again.

72

The Sailor

My father, asleep on the ship’s deck,

has forgotten where he is.

He sleeps in the world before statistics.

He writes home from a San Francisco bar:

a letter composed

of ocean – masts and cable cars.

Somewhere up ahead: more ocean,

and 60 million dead, while back in Dunedin

his mother waits. She will die soon

and never see him again.

Likewise, his father.

And one day he, too, will die:

in the cold, half-carpeted room, my mother

will run to the made-up

corpse in the coffin, and cry

Oh darling!

But for this to happen, they need to meet.

So now I imagine wartime Edinburgh,

a forces dance, a glass of something or other

somewhere in Rose Street, after which

Jack sees her to the last tram:

Portobello – how the time has sped …73

He hands her up to the deck.

‘I suppose,’ he says, ‘I should give you

a fond peck on the forehead.’

74

Knots

Nobody else awake,

no one knocking on the door.

I must be many miles from the centre of my life.

The morning light won’t speak

though sometimes it reveals the speaker.

It misses the boy who learned to tie the knots.

75

Our Teacher

Each week she photographed our class.

She said she was acting on instructions

from the Queen. We didn’t believe her.