- Dad's New Dress -
Clothes on a washing line.
The slacks hang off your thick hips.
Ending just above your ankles.
-
Pedestrian signs or gum wrapped in paper.
Thrown to the side of the road.
-
I wanna be one of the boys,
Who sing in masculine tones.
Wearing cowboy boots and frilled dresses.
-
The country’s dust may caress his knees
But nobody thinks he’ll leave the family home.
-
Cut the tags off your new dress
Before the sun comes up.
She’s still asleep in your unmade,
Quilted mess.
-
What’s dad going to say when he hears you’re submissive?
Thrown to the side of the road.
-
What do you owe us for your missteps?
That isn’t already paid for
In shaking hands and bad breath.
-
Steal Pete’s RM Williams from his wardrobe.
Keep the electric razor from grazing above your lip.
-
The cut on your forearm grander
Than your great grandad’s war medal.
/
I realise in all the shoving and shouting
That I have the same sun broiled blood
As my father, as his before.
-
The momentum of every fist they ever threw,
Wells up between my finger joints
With an arthritic fervour.
-
I dream about a farmer’s stubbled fingers,
Wrapping around the throat of a pokie machine.
-
Forcing his wrist
Through his neck
Into the spotted gum floorboards.