“who meet inoffensively together”

Poetry | Anna Rose James

the people in the pool look

like glitter from this height

and why wouldn’t they,

beyond flames’ reach

black cockatoos flock to strip bark,

ripping plaster from sarcophagus

sealed up with honey gum

we, they, crack under the weight

of decades of yes,

the lost best time to act

look up an image of this species

and think: how could we

diminish this bedazzled miniature

of reanimated ink crying at us from

nightmares, knowledge of the

worst within us

their yells the most attuned,

synchronised to our mistakes,

our wrongs, like a baby, innate,

not lost, not unnatural, but a

rational response, perfectly

designed, greeting its purpose

how could we have forgotten

this loud night sky, wings as

potent as a father's

disappointment,

their yelling is then, is now,

is tomorrow, until death

do we dare, playing chicken

with the undead

black sleep-time yanked down from

its place in the atmosphere, made smoke,

fed to the day like an experiment

in the sink with shampoo

stirred with glitter, and hair

it looks like they are swimming

away from something

the heat of curious hands

it is too late to learn trees and birds

remember the night sky and

count the stars you cannot see