John West
Sparrow
Gets Its Moth
I
watched the insect's final fling
across
a few feet of sun-drenched
Australian
back yard, fluttering for existence
with
the Spit Fire sparrow strafe-ing it with certainty
as
it swam in the moth's thinning slip steam
and
then the bush happened
next
the bird was flogging the moth
against
the drought blown grass.
An
Awkward Granddaughter
Was
"Nan" her favourite adult, the only one
who'd
read her school assignments
who'd
buy her small surprises
even
though she had no money?
Or
is it the smells, the smells
she
used to have
but
ones which then
were
kept under her control
not
mushroom-clouding out
joining
with the other patients' odours
to
stink the whole room out?
Perhaps
it is
that
her body has been mutilated
her
hair pulled out in tufts
her
belly blown out
her
left breast gone.
None
of this though
seems
to bother
the
rest of her large family
they
sit on the bed and chat
to
each other or to Nan:
perhaps
the problem for the girl
is
that she was born... "sensitive"
sensitive
to a fault.
