By Jane Frank
Poems fall into my inbox
from people I’ve never met
home-baked cookies cool,
the dog, ecstatic we’re home
rolling in fallen lilly pilly flowers
beneath a vibrant fickle sun
the silver underside of gazania
foliage sparkling with a new
energy – It’s a blessing that
your father never knew a thing
about this my mother says
from 300 miles away, sipping
coffee by his grave, our
conversation dispersing three
ways on speakerphone so
I wonder about the discordant
song of a magpie on the line.
Each night, I’m over-dreaming—
events take place in swishing
haloes of colour that zoom
in and out microscope-like:
the faces of old lovers, secrets
whispered behind cupped
hands, a bell tower swaying
in a lightning strewn sky to the
raw peal of bells. The boys
plan to watch another episode
of The Walking Dead. Now my
mother is speaking of the time
they first met, their stars joined
on a ferris wheel of hope.
These days like watching bulbs
grow, slowly – the past pushing
through an uneven surface,
sticky new petals uncurling—
their colour not yet known.