GUEST POET: JAMES RICKS

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The pelican descends
Over the blue black waters
Of the estuary.
The estuary is the
Shape of a snake that
Swallowed a pig. The air
Is cold. Space is cold. The
Colour of the farmers teeth
Stay with me to this day. His
Disgusting habits. Done not
Quite in secret. We were only
Kids. Gods own country, he
Called it. The vegetation was
Squat and wind blown. The
River black. The fish black.
They did not have good table
Manners. Their breathing and
Chewing were raucous. I
Swallowed lemonade. Thick
Sheets of butter on brown bread.
Bales of hay. A truck’s steering wheel.
I was almost crushed to death
In a hay shed. I felt sorry for the calves.
Blue calves. White viscous unprocessed
Milk. A coffee cup in the milk Vat.
The wet noses of calves. My father
With a piece of poly-pipe. Smacking
The cattle on the rump. All
For my education. He wore khaki.
He smelled of hay and lanolin.
There was a black gap between
His front teeth. He had big
Nervous thumbs. A silver watch
From Arabia. You could set the
Date in Arabic. He put a shark
Hook through his hand. The barb
Was cut off with pliers in a
Small dirty surgery. It’s
Got to pass all the way through
He once told me when I was splitting
Up with a girlfriend. It’s like a
Fish hook. Once the barb’s in,
The whole hook has to pass through.
He’s in the crematorium gardens now.
He lies beneath a rose bush named
After a fashion designer. A palm
Tree grows near by. A wide brown
Lake beyond that.

2019

James Ricks is the author of 11 Months in Bunbury. He lives in Bunbury, West Australia. Ricks knows that death has many faces.