"The Revolver"

         I will be haunted to remember him by southern winds,
        ardent acrobat with brazen sepia eyes, he lilted gently –
        a taciturn man with a pocket for clothespins.

After th’ ripe pitch into orbit, the silence dropped like a balm.
You, I loved. You had a child beneath the autumn tree.
My ears may fatten on bells rung by outback winds

across the current’s ceaseless periphery.
You tucked in, you rolled back from sand dunes at Perth to waters more free,
        a cadenced man made fortunate by his clothespins.

        And light, lacquer those shattered lungs in his past ‘lectric blood.
Weigh down, immaculate collapse, to cold bare floor at last. If I call, refuse me;
I might yet smell my musk on stillblown southern winds

for there are some rivers that never find their oceans.
And shameless, clutching mother in the iris of noisy camera cacophony,
she waltzes: constant, your daughter – your bundle of clothespins.

Your beautiful feet once flew above the ground. Now still, they rest beneath it.
You frequented the places I sleep. Now they are only a little comfort to me.
        I will be haunted, I will remember by south winds
        a taciturn man with a thing for clothespins.