it’s true. As for the animals, I never really knew.

Someone else did that. In the end we ate a few.

38

Angels

They are not always awake.

Sometimes they step out of their own light

into the world’s great darkness

where I believe they rest and pray.

They still try to imagine a better world,

they want us to bring our neighbours

gifts of calm. Well, they are angels. This time

they have made a children’s playground,

and are climbing to the top of the tallest slide.

Watch me, they cry, watch me! So now

God must sigh and shake them awake.

No more of this, he says, no more.

Later you can hear the angels chattering:

I thought I was a giant sail,

the wind filled me with flight,

I wore my wings again – yet it was all a dream!

39

The Angry God

He says you and whose army

he lies around and laughs at our mistakes

he says his son is dead to him now

he says he never really had a son

also he hates being on the team bus

he’s going to ditch his manager

he certainly will not do that fucking karaoke

he’s taking his fists back to the piano

the girl wasn’t even his type

he is not that person anymore

40

He Loved Her Lemonade Scones

They fell in love between the end of the footie season

and the start of shearing. Sheep gazed, bewildered.

The paddocks stretched up into the hills,

mostly scrub and a few old stands of bush.

‘Now listen here,’ he said, and that was it really.

41

Breakfast

I had no trouble with anything

till he started making the toast.

42

The Mysterious Twin

There is only one of me, she says,

but we all know there are two.

She says she is an only child

but we know full well she is not.

Her mysterious twin is out there

doing something in the garden.

I can’t see her from the window.

Where is she exactly? Then when I turn back

she has put aside her knitting,

she has switched off the television

because the volume knob is broken.

She probably turned it up too hard.

But as always she is lucky. Her mysterious twin

will come back inside quite soon

and fix it.

43

The Kaffir Lime Is Having a Bad Day

I was made of clusters.

I functioned in secret ways.

I called out in a voice

I did not recognise as my own.

That was one way to do it.

You learn not to trust people.

You want the whole thing to finish.

I went through the door.

No colour in the great outdoors,

just the cold attacking wind.

The sparrow spread its tiny wings.

Oh it was opening up the sky.

44

Isolation Notes

Ivan the Terrible eats most of a mouse

wasps and flies fight over the rest

now only the tail is left

+

The small boy’s ancient voice: