Getting the breeze off the gutter
my grandmother called it,
we made armadas of sticks and balloons
to sail down the cramped street when it rained.
Her black and white turncoat mate would sing
as he broke our fleet on the tripping up path,
returning to his sentinel letter box of discarded brick
he carolled to embrace the milko’s two pints daily.
A crazy lunatic jerky clown always first
to the cream, plunging in, piercing the foil,
not just from our porch but others as well;
people were more tolerant then.
That belligerent uncaring eye might have remembered
the clipped feathers of the phantom wing,
could still feel the flick of it now in a one way turn –
his manic disdain of us so fretful.
When she died, we found out
she’d been married before
to a soldier who never returned:
from the common loss of wanting flight.
Her mallee frame in a relief watching magpie Jack,
on his brazen hoard of silver by the pantry corner;
small compensation for the soaring misdemeanour
of a farewell milky kiss at the state’s expense.
Published in The Leviathan’s Apprentice 2015
James Walton Poetry 