page 126

October 2009: Five Weeks In Dunedin

as an Albatross crests
the nippled ridge
of the Peninsula

in the city
the bare legs
of skateboarding students
display goose bumps
huge enough to
affect their aerodynamics

and after all that stoking
of the cottage range
my handkerchief
insists that my sinuses
contain a coalmine

I am clad in merino
from occiput to ankle
as poems struggle out
my fingerless gloves
like possum joeys
from their pouches

the rubbish man whose
weekly truck recycles
my writings says he
works only two days
on the rubbish
the rest of the time
he is an artist

I envy his clarity