An Absence of Saints

Printing black and metallic gold pms 874 onto Freelife Felt 215gsm white, with line pattern running vertically Spine confirmed at 8.25mm. Debossing artwork on page 2 of Indesign file

At the heart of this exciting debut collection is the impulse to explore: family history in Europe, migration to Australia, the contours of memory and desire. Exquisite lyric and deft narrative illuminate history’s mosaics and brilliant shards of lost time. ‘A poetry of evocation – of time, distance and intimacy – where actions are refracted through objects and emotions coalesce in the lacunae of the commonplace.’ – louis armand ‘Licari has a magical ability to respond to – and then express – the essential strangeness, not only of objects and places but of our experience of life itself.’ – martin duwell

Rosanna Licari An Absence of Saints

A circle of vermillion flares into petals of yellow and white. These coloured tesserae, a contrast to the dull sea of roof tiles below. A train rattles in the distance and then Rapallo fades from my memory.

WINNER OF THE 2009 THOMAS SHAPCOTT POETRY PRIZE

Rosanna Licari

An Absence of Saints ISBN 978-0-7022-3675-4

9 780702 236754 university of queensland press www.uqp.com.au cover design: Sandy Cull, gogoGingko

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UQP POETRY SERIES

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An Absence of Saints

Rosanna Licari was born in Europe and raised in South Sydney. She completed her degree at Sydney University, where she studied Italian and drama. She lives in Brisbane and teaches English to migrants and refugees.

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The Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize Series

Lidija Cvetkovic War Is Not the Season for Figs (2003) Jaya Savige latecomers (2004) Nathan Shepherdson Sweeping the Light Back Into the Mirror (2005) Angela Gardner Parts of Speech (2006) Sarah Holland-Batt Aria (2007) Felicity Plunkett Vanishing Point (2008)

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WINNER OF THE 2009 THOMAS SHAPCOTT POETRY PRIZE

Rosanna Licari An Absence of Saints

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For my mother, Sofia, and my father, Fortunato (1928–1998)

First published 2010 by University of Queensland Press PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia www.uqp.com.au © 2010 Rosanna Licari This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher. Typeset in 11.5/14 pt Adobe Garamond by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group Author photograph by Jools Weller

Sponsored by the Queensland Office of Arts and Cultural Development

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Licari, Rosanna Eva. â•… An absence of saints / Rosanna Licari. â•… 9780702238437 (pbk) â•… 9780702238116 (pdf ) A821.4 University of Queensland Press uses papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

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Contents 1. I s t r i a My grandmother’s orchard, Istria, 1939â•… 3 Uncle Pepi the mechanic, Istria, 1945â•… 5 Tyrol, Austria, 1917â•… 7 Skirmish, 1942â•… 8 The last weeks of the war, Istria, 1945â•… 9 Missingâ•… 14 Sofia visits the clairvoyant, 1946â•… 15 Zia Daria in Toukley Hospitalâ•… 16 Zia’s lesson on how to make gnocchiâ•… 17 Mediterranean mosaicâ•… 19 A glimpse of waterâ•… 20

2. B ota n y B ay Banks’ tattooâ•… 25 Botany Bay Iâ•… 27 Snapshots of Fatherâ•… 28 Hunters and collectorsâ•… 30 Strangersâ•… 35 Lineageâ•… 37 Lessonâ•… 39 Botany Bay IIâ•… 41 Under the flight path, Mascotâ•… 42 Two photographs: notesâ•… 43 Offeringsâ•… 45 His friend sang fuoco, fuochettoâ•… 46

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In the deep endâ•… 47 Mangroves at Nudgeeâ•… 49 Fortunato at the funeral parlourâ•… 50 Olivia after the funeralâ•… 51 Hemispheresâ•… 53 Bus stop, Banksmeadowâ•… 54 Sea urchinsâ•… 55

3. L a z a ru s

at t h e b e ac h

Antemeridianâ•… 59 Lazarus at the beachâ•… 60 The Wetâ•… 64 Photography of coastlinesâ•… 65 Finding yourself hereâ•… 68 The future as an islandâ•… 69 Cycloneâ•… 72 Arrivalâ•… 73 Variations in travelâ•… 74 Postmeridian, Frigiliana, Spainâ•… 77 A metallic night songâ•… 78 An absence of saintsâ•… 79 In the east the war continues, Croatia, 1995â•… 81 Death in summerâ•… 82 Sea loverâ•… 84 Good Fridayâ•… 85 A mild nightâ•… 86 Marcus Beachâ•… 87 A note for the pastâ•… 88 Lines written after lunchâ•… 89 Driveâ•… 90

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Sleepless since a car sped byâ•… 91 Sunshine Beachâ•… 92 Orleigh Parkâ•… 93 Evening at Byron Bayâ•… 94 Plantingsâ•… 95 Notesâ•… 97 Acknowledgmentsâ•… 99

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I think that I am here, on this earth, To present a report on it, but to whom I don’t know. – czeslaw milosz, ‘Consciousness’

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1. Istria

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My grandmother’s orchard, Istria, 1939 1. adriatic figs A seasoned widow by the time her youngest was rolling in the orchard with the other six. From her kitchen the smell of wood smoke: the making of jam, and in the cellar an assortment of figs drying for the winter. The sweetest, the premium figs, were not for children but picked for i signori from Berlin and Budapest, lining the Adriatic in late spring and summer their shoes clicked on the shingles. Along the shore, the morning sun worked gold into air, grandmother wore her warmest smile and, carrying the leaf-lined basket plump with fruit slipped coins into her pocket. And beyond, the flat blue water and the haze of daydreams; she did not know the fruit she thought pecked by the birds was the work of the eldest girl, who wanted a taste of the high life as if she sipped coffee in cafés, eating cake by the sea. 3

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2. chestnuts and green wine Through play more than work the children beat the chestnuts to the ground with sticks, bruising and scratching arms, the harvest covered with leaves until the husks peeled off like scabs. Under the house, the eldest son took sips of the green wine while, upstairs, his siblings bundled near the firewood teasing, eating homemade bread and fig jam, waiting as grandmother roasted chestnuts, fingers burned from slitting the shells with her nails. Outside, the first snow fell.

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Uncle Pepi the mechanic, Istria, 1945 The sound of twigs breaking along the path out the back alerts him that there’s something wrong. This time the trap door in his mother’s cellar doesn’t help him, he’s at his aunt’s chopping firewood. German soldiers grab him by the arms. They drive him to Icici to work for them. In gestures more than talk, he tries to explain 5

that he’s not an electrician but it’s no good and one of them points his gun muzzle at the aerial searchlight that won’t work. Pepi understands that he has to do a good job. He begins fidgeting with the button on his shirt as he watches a cow that grazes daily along the roadside. He’s worried and consoles himself with the thought that at least his sister and girlfriend will bring him lunch. He figures out how the contraption works and after two failed attempts at getting a spare part from Fiume and

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Trieste, where they send him in a jeep filled with young soldiers and machine guns, the Germans try Torino then Berlin. With the spare part in place, Pepi asks for oil and when he goes to get the bucket, it’s empty. In a sweat, he looks round and sees the cow nearby licking its lips. The oil is smeared on her snout and ears. He rushes to the captain, says moo moo and mimes the cow lapping. Three of the soldiers wrestle the cow down and the captain takes a knife from his belt, and slits the 6

animal’s belly. It jolts as if electrocuted, blood and oil ooze onto the grass. The smell of guts makes Pepi gag. The captain smiles and nods, then orders another bucket of oil. Pepi gets back to work muttering a quick prayer to the Virgin Mary. Drawing breath, he flicks the switch and the light beam appears.

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Tyrol, Austria, 1917 My grandfather, Giuseppe Velcˇic´ puts down his greasy rifle to read a snow-dusted letter. It’s from his wife, Antonia. The envelope was raised seventeen metres up the slope by string. He has a son, born on the 6th of January, the day of the Magi. He’ll be named after his father and given the middle name, Baldasar. Giuseppe smiles as the infantry waits for another round of fire from the Italians, his back against the wet rocks.

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Skirmish, 1942 Hands on head, a shard of sunlight burns into Adamo’s back. My uncle’s unit is surrounded by Communists. The wounded are sprawled on the ridge among the bullet shells. A lean-faced guerrilla grips a match between his teeth: goes through Adamo’s pockets asks what his trade is. Butcher, he replies. The man grins. Join us. We could use someone like you. Instead my uncle asks to bring down the wounded but the leader refuses╯– his men can do it on their own. Gunfire cracks the canopy and the partisans come down the incline with no one. One of the young soldiers throws up.

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The last weeks of the war, Istria, 1945 1. icici The Germans tell her to get into the jeep. Holding on to its cold, dusty sides, Sofia looks back at the steel-grey Adriatic and her brother, as the jeep lurches onto the road. He holds the lunch she’s brought him wrapped in a worn, cotton napkin against his chest. Standing next to Pepi, his girlfriend, who has accompanied her there. Sofia tightens her grip. The Germans are taking her to Fiume. 2. fiume The gaol door slams shut as she looks at the toilet in the corner and the old stone wall facing her and the others, all women. She is the youngest in this group of forty. She fingers the crucifix around her neck.

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The cell smells of human sweat and waste but swallows swoop into the courtyard when the prisoners walk round inside its walls once a day. At midday after they soak their bread with the remnants of their watery soup, the others stare at the serving of pasta she gets in addition because of her age. For more food she lines up with the adults to unpick rough, burlap sacks in a musty room. She’d hoped for meat. She gets bread and jam.

3. portorosa The guard takes her by the arm, out of the cell, and onto a truck to sit among German soldiers with tortoise-like helmets and rifles. Non parlano italiano and she doesn’t speak German.

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They arrive at a hotel that smells of lilacs and roses. Flanked by two soldiers she pauses in the lobby when she sees the French windows and the honeycoloured, parquet floor. Sofia shares a velvet-draped room with three other girls, and sees the jade Adriatic from a small, narrow balcony. No one talks. Anyone could be a spy. She dreams of her mother’s garden in Valsantamarina. She’s become a mula del FlaK wears a blue uniform, goes to daily lessons to learn German╯–╯Ich habe Angst morse code╯–╯dit dit dit dah dah dah dit dit dit and to study the highways of the air.

4. pirano She gets off the tram and something makes her keep walking to the water’s edge. This time she isn’t getting the tram back to Portorosa. A shoemaker with a limp asks her where she is going, she tells him she wants to get back to Fiume. 11

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He points to his house in the lane. She walks in that direction after he leaves but then she hides and waits. Hai visito la mula del FlaK? He asks his wife when he returns. There are no Germans. Sofia comes out from her spot under some stairs. They’ll get her to a safe house.

5. croc Part of the letter to her mother reads non sono coi tedeschi, sono in una casa. The woman slips it into her shirt pocket and promises to deliver it. A few days later, some dirty, young men rush past Sofia and into the cottage with news╯– the Americans have liberated Trieste.

6. abbazia Sofia stands at the aquamarine shore and can’t remember how many trucks it took to get from Croc to Buie to Trieste to Fiume to Abbazia, 12

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or how much bread and water she had, or how many people she met as she passed rasping vehicles filled with partisans or prisoners of war. She knows if she’s lucky she only needs one more ride.

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Missing his face stares from black and white a homemade poster on a wall rego number and car description

missing



in some fog that never lifted the voice and smell of them and their touch frozen in a snow cave draped with a frostbitten wind but their warm breath is



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with no map to follow bulldozing over bones cracking under the weight of hopeless tears only the trails of fluid left by the bodies after days of sun and grit and rubble scraped over by machinery chewing the missing 14

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Sofia visits the clairvoyant, 1946 He sees her coming. It will be a short visit and hers will be a long life. She will travel over water. Her mother has sent her. She looks round the whitewashed room╯– on the wall, a carved crucifix, on top of a cupboard, a red piano accordion decorated with madre perla like the one her missing brother played folk songs on. The grey-handed man smiles and tells her that, yes, it is similar to the one at her house. He looks up at the cupboard and says: ‘He’s alive.’ But Vladimiro never comes home.

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Zia Daria in Toukley Hospital Now she sleeps. Above the crackle of her breath the sound of the priest thumbing through his prayer book. He finds the page and begins. My brother and I, in this blue room, blinds filtering the glare. We’ve never seen this before. I rock to prayers and the clicking rosary beads. The priest leaves and we have a cigarette in the car park. There’s not much to say. I look up at the clear sky. Smoke moves across my face like shadow from cloud. In the middle of dinner, the hospital rings and tells us it’s over.

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Zia’s lesson on how to make gnocchi doesn’t interest me. I look at the cat on the back porch pressed against the screen door. Cold, boiled potatoes rest on the table. She mashes the spuds and one of her stories begins. Sirens blared as British planes approached the sky over Fiume. I pick at some potato with fingers and knife. ‘Stop that!’ She adds flour and salt and kneads. I didn’t leave for the air raid shelter because I’d had enough. I was nineteen. The cat begins clawing the couch on the back porch. The planes blasted the city. I had no idea how long it lasted. After the bombing I opened my eyes. We roll the dough into long ropes. ‘More flour.’ Then cut them into small pieces. I was covered in white dust in the middle of the rubble, the glint of metal above the port in the distance.

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We roll each dumpling along the tines of a fork, impress a pattern and they’re ready to boil. I knew then I’d survive the war.

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Mediterranean mosaic Today neither Mother’s story nor Lowell’s ‘Sailing Home from Rapallo’ brings the azure of the Gulf of Genoa to mind. I remember squatting on a balcony floor, a doll under my arm, as my fingers trace the grout slowly. A circle of vermilion flares into petals of yellow and white. These coloured tesserae, a contrast to the dull sea of roof tiles below. A train rattles in the distance and then Rapallo fades from my memory. Mother tells me Zio and Zia lived in a small attic near the centre. Adamo zigzagged the streets, delivering meat door-to-door on a bicycle. When we visited, I called for Daria as I clambered up the steps of the tenement, holding Mother’s hand. She concludes the balcony was the best thing about the place. Memory is made of fragments or perhaps lies in the interstices? But I try to make meaning of the pieces, and rack through tile shards in this half-light of doubt. 19

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A glimpse of water i.m. Adamo Lazarich 1914–2003

A month before the end he refused to eat, pulled tubes out of veins, asked my brother: who was that woman just now? € It was my mother, his sister-in-law. € Maybe the body gets tired of remembering, the swimming through boulders & sand & within a tidal pool, a rock spins on its failures. € He told the nurses that he was born in Austria then it became Italy, Yugoslavia & finally Croatia, almost a century of╯–isms, poor old thing, they thought it was the dementia talking. € He never spoke much but preferred to walk silently while I tried to catch up too young to know that he didn’t take the bus because his English wasn’t perfect. €

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Age brings the wisdom of silence & drowns the linguistics of the past: the artillery, the armies, the promises marching across borders fluid as the sea. He wasn’t afraid of water or its reflections of night, only the shadows of low-flying planes.

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2. Botany Bay

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Banks’ tattoo Now do I wish that our freinds in England could by the assistance of some magical spying glass take a peep at our situation: Dr Solander setts at the Cabbin table describing, myself at my Bureau Journalizing, between us hangs a large bunch of sea weed, upon the table lays the wood and barnacles; they would see that notwisthstanding our different occupations our lips move very often, and without being conjurors might guess that we were talking about what we should see upon the land which there is now no doubt we shall see very soon.╯–╯Sir Joseph Banks, 3 October 1769

Everything in the air and water matters. The birds, the fish, the seaweed and pieces of wood that bump against the hull. You’ve left the Southern Seas where the women mark their finger and toe joints with the figure Z. All the Tahitians cover their arms and legs with crescents, circles and squares. Cook records the latitude and longitude, describing conditions as ‘Little wind and some times Calm.’ At the cabin table you examine botanical specimens, talk about the tattow on your arm.

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Years later, Charles Davy asks you in a letter: ‘I should be so much obliged to you for an exact copy of the characters stain’d upon your arm.’ No one has found your reply. What’s left on your skin after the fragrance of coconut oil and a woman’s breath merge with the night? Did the priest design a pattern for an adventurer ‘passing through’ or incise a map of the stars to be read under the Milky Way’s light?

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Botany Bay I Sunday 6th. In the evening the yawl return’d from fishing having caught two Sting rays weighing near 600 pounds. The great quantity of New Plants╯.╯.╯.╯Mr Banks & Dr Solander collected in this place occasioned my giveing it the name of Sting-Ray Harbour Botanyists Bay.╯ –╯James Cook’s Journal, Daily Entries, 6 May 1770

Cook rubs the bone fishing hook he found in sand as he looks back at the Maori islands. Still there is no sign of a great southern continent. Cook has to continue. He sets the prow for Van Diemen’s Land and sails too far. But, as the waves slam the ship, on the hazy line of sky and water, an ascending coastline: the east coast of New Holland. Fires burn along the shoreline as the ship moves north, and ten days after naming Point Hicks Cook finds a spot to land╯– ‘Capacious safe and commodious.’ The sailors catch rays, and as he watches the men cut away the fins his thought is to call the bay, Stingray Harbour.

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Snapshots of Father 1. morning caffelatte After he’s back from the chicken run, tap water melts the cold from his fingers. He pours coffee from the percolator into the milk just before it boils. Father makes a cup for himself then leaves the rest in the saucepan for us. Crossword puzzle in his pocket, he cycles to work in his beret and overalls.

2. in the laundry ‘You can’t keep these,’ he says, dabbing the wound with water and disinfectant then putting the sparrow back in the shoe box. ‘They need to be free.’ Outside by the screen door our canary sings and eats the seeding grass father’s picked for it. When it sees him it spreads its wings and coos wildly. 28

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3. bus trip to mascot An old man in a trench coat trips onto the bus, and shoves Monopoly money at the driver. The other passengers look out the window at ducks on the pond. ‘I can’t take this,’ the driver says. Again, the old boy shoves the crimson five hundred at him. The driver raises his voice, tells him to get off. I look down at my lap as Father gets up to pay.

4. roast duck There’s hardly any light in the shed or talk. The bird shudders after the swing of the axe. The body is warm. Father and I pull out yellow feathers.

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Hunters and collectors 1. the core of the science When the damp of the Even made it necessary to send my Plants and books on board I made a small excursion in order to shoot any thing I could meet with and found a large quantity of Quails, much resembling our English ones, of which I might have killd as many almost as I pleasd had I given my time up to it, but my business was to kill variety and not too many individuals of any one species.╯–╯Sir Joseph Banks, 3 May 1770, Botany Bay

To collect you have to understand having. To have: to own, to possess. Nearness can be relied on. To collect you have to understand knowing. To know: to acquaint, to experience. What can be named, can outgrow fear. To collect you have to understand regeneration. To regenerate: to renew, to rebirth. Life ignites through endings.

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2. banksia serrata Our collection of Plants was now grown so immensly large that it was necessary that some extrordinary care should be taken of them least they should spoil in the books. I therefore devoted this day to that business and carried all the drying paper, near 200 Quires of which the larger part was full, ashore and spreading them upon a sail in the sun kept them in this manner exposd the whole day, often turning them and sometimes turning the Quires in which were plants inside out╯–╯Sir Joseph Banks, 3 May 1770, Botany Bay

The sailmaker gives Banks and Parkinson a sceptical look as a group of sailors spreads a perfectly good piece of canvas on the sand. Banks arranges the specimen-filled paper on the sail and throughout the day walks round and between the rows touching, checking, considering with the mien of a midwife. Parkinson picks up a plant found nearby, feels the woody stem, the serrated leaves that scratch the skin. And the yellowy spike, the flower? A brush, a vase cleaner, not a relative of the rose.

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Parkinson knows nothing of the plant’s other secrets╯– not destroyed by fire the spike matures into the seed cone then opens with the heat of flames.

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3. king parrots One of our midshipmen stragling by himself a long way from any one else met by accident with a very old man and woman and some children: they were setting under a tree and neither party saw the other till they were close together.╯–╯Sir Joseph Banks, 4 May 1770, Botany Bay

He bends over and brushes the grass from his boots, his calico sack filled with parrots slips from his shoulder. He looks up. An old woman motions the children to her side. She is quite naked. He has come too far. Canoes scrape against rocks that jut from wet sand like heads. ‘Indians’ slam stone knives into oysters clamped to boulders.

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The midshipman feels cold, takes the dead birds from the sack, and sets them at the woman’s feet. The blood-stained feathers touch her skin. He steps back into the scrub.

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Strangers 1. learning the new language, pre-school The teacher motions me down as the children stare. The clank of metal chain against swing, I scrape my heels into dirt to stop, look at the sparrows chattering on the church roof next door. 2. at the front gate Mother asks me if I speak English. Curling a finger around a strand of hair, I reply: ‘Yes.’ ‘Show me.’ So I do. ‘Quattaquatta, quattaquatta, quattaquatta.’ ‘What do the children say?’ she asks. ‘They laugh.’ And I look back at the swing. 3. cabbages, cranbrook street, botany I push my face against the fence palings to see between the gap. In the background a building with a verandah and then rows of vegetables. ‘Capuzzi,’ I think.

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Two old men in straw hats and grey pyjamas plough. A pigtail down their backs. My hand slides into a splinter. They hear me. I run for home.

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Lineage A dull song floats over the table, I sit with my family’s women, black scarf tight around my head. In groups they tell stories solitary as a wail, serving the rules by the spoonful I watch them sink to the bottom of coffee cups. The cake I press into my mouth silences me, turning my stomach heavy as the dough they knead in the morning and leave to rise in a stifling corner of the kitchen. Through the window past the village carriages weave out of the valley, my women sit and watch unmoved, knitting an existence that rests like a numb still life on a wall faded by worry. The damp rises slowly pressing time forward. They read cups, their future told in coffee dregs, every grain soaked in regret. 37

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In the dark a line of illuminated windows threads through the trees below, dropping my scarf, I go and wait for the next train out.

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Lesson I was no more than seven and mother and I were on our way back home from church. We stopped in to see a woman who lived nearby so mother could have coffee and Italian conversation. The woman’s daughter took me to her bedroom to

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show me her treasures, but what I noticed on the floor near her bed was the most exquisite pair of slippers. They were nothing like the dull, sensible ones I had at home. The pair that reeked of order, discipline and the mundane. These were pink satin, edged with soft, white feathers. And curled on top of each one, was a dragon. Night waters murmured and the dragons’ scales glistened. Moonlight was in their eyes. One whispered to me: they came from China, and I knew then they had to be mine. When the women had finished their coffee and we were about to leave, I picked up the slippers and hid them behind me. After a short distance, the dragons became heavy and I wondered where I would feed them or

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keep them from harm as mother didn’t allow pets in the house. Mamma, I said. She turned and gave me a horrified look when she saw them in my hands. Then she was angry. The dragons snorted and lashed their tails. She began to tell me a story about a thief whose last wish was to see his mother. At the gallows, he looked as though he was about to kiss her but instead he bit his mother and said, This is for not making me return the first needle I stole. That said, mother

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marched me back to face the woman and the girl; to apologise, to be shamed so I wouldn’t fall into a life of shoplifting, car stealing, and breaking and entering. And dragon fire raged in my cheeks.

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Botany Bay II The pier’s aged grey, almost pewter. Father carries the fishing gear and after a silence says Keep going. Planks rock under foot. I notice not all of them are nailed down. Then the gap between the planks╯– a line of sea, of rising tide. He never speaks of running for shelter with the other apprentices as the Allies bombed Fiume, or the Communist partisans filing into the city, or the Italian soldiers shoved live into the foibe. He never speaks of the secret police. Keep going Father repeats but the handrail moves and there’s the gap I could slip through. I have to look up, and ahead, and walk steadily, and I learn not to look back.

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Under the flight path, Mascot We swapped celebrity pictures on the red linoleum in Stella’s house. Her mother fed us meat loaf and dolmades, asked us to keep the door shut. Wide-eyed icons of Jesus and Mary edged with gold flickered behind the light of oil-soaked wicks. Stella told me about blood, body hair and breasts. At the end of Lent, she gave me dyed eggs and talked about forbidden fruit. On the day she left, I looked at the clouds and imagined the smell of aniseed and basil as she flew to her marriage arranged in Athens.

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Two photographs: notes 1. immovable feast The table laden as in a Seicento painting but no exotic oranges or plumed pheasants on silver trays. This display was more mundane: roast chicken, vegetables, bread and compulsory cake and mother would slide in the plastic, floral centrepiece. We were also arranged but round the table, hair and clothes inspected. She would direct us to face the camera and, of course, smile looking out to the ones that were left behind see, see, better than in the old country.

2. second row That’s me, in the second row with the unfashionable hair, dreaming of being like them: tuckshop money, sleepover parties, make-up, magazines on how to talk to boys. I went to the swim club only once and flapped like a wet moth. That’s Margaret Mary, in the last row. The one with the long hair. The friend who always praised herself and her family. She told me not to say anything but I hadn’t noticed her brother’s sunken chest.

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One day I gave her a note for Geoffrey from Marist Brothers. She returned with the news that before he read it, he took it by the corner and said let the grease drip off. I said nothing about him saying it or her telling me. Nothing. Mother still tells me she regrets not putting an extra ‘s’ in my name. As if Rosanna wasn’t different enough.

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Offerings My mother gives me a stiff look then mouths say you like them as her friend pulls the hand-me-downs out of the plastic bag: skirts hang over the knees necklines clutch at the throat, no boots or red bags, only stitched, zipped, buttoned cloth that hems my body, and my posture spells ingratitude to Mother.

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His friend sang fuoco, fuochetto Father’s instruction to me was always simple: no playing with matches, and Are the stove and heater switched off? A fire burnt within him, hidden during the day as he worked with metal at the lathe.€ In the morning and afternoon he tended to the animals. An odd job for a man also afraid of disease. The empire of germs marched over newspapers, money, and hands.€ He attacked it regularly with salvoes of soap, metho and disinfectant. Mother couldn’t bear it. The fire wasn’t put out that day in the barn.€ As a small child, father told the adults everything: his friend climbed to a cupboard for the matches and, singing, filled the wheelbarrow with hay.€ The flames took only one.€ After the accident father washed and scrubbed himself until he was sore.€ But somehow the advancing smoke through his hair and skin seemed to stay. In later years he’d douse the bathroom with bleach to put out the burning viruses.

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In the deep end 1. pool A net of light floats on water. We dive in and touch the bottom, hold our breath, push off the floor and shatter the surface with laughter. Two of the O’Malley boys walk with a swagger as bold as a few drinks. We tread water and they give cheek to the girls, dive in, do handstands then swim fifty metres with the ease of falling. The eldest takes me by the shoulders and threatens me with a dunking. In the deep end: the slow slides, the grimaces, the adolescent grab of the leg. It’s a game.

2. harbour From the bridge, city lights are more intimate than the breeze. In the back seat, my face at the window, I count pylons stamped across the sky, then the steel snaps in the middle like a twig. The world flattens into an ancient map, cars fall into black sea. Water, fins pour into windows.

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The smell of chlorine still in my hair, I wake up soaked.

3. lake The branches are heavy with the scent of the lake. There’s lots of talk of the cricket and the win on the trail down past the rocks. The O’Malley boys open beers and take a swig before collecting kindling. The crackling of new flames then a parrot’s screech ruffles the leaves with a dare. The eldest boy slams into water. Shards of light. The reeds at the bottom scrape against his skin. The deep end pushes the eldest against a gulp of water. He comes up, grabs and grabs for his youngest brother in the bubbles. Then, this can’t be true, the scratches down the brother’s chest. The game stops as quickly as it started.

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Mangroves at Nudgee From the beginning the seeds are already shot, bright leaves and a small, eager root. They drop, the tide carrying them onto an island, a span of coastline, to cluster like cells that cling and multiply in a great fluid body. Mother rings me and tells me the bad news as, fingering the mud, the root savours its rank little banquet holding fast and tight to a grey-pink organ. She says it’s in the pancreas that large, invisible pain behind my father’s stomach. I stare and suck shells; white shells, pretty shells, pitted and lined, cockles that slice then crown my mouth with small red crystals. 49

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Fortunato at the funeral parlour Father grips his cap, the rosary beads and lies in this coffin with ornate handles. He wears his best navy-blue suit and a tight mouth. Two nights earlier I dreamed of him, bloated and pale; I watched with neutral eyes. Arms raised, my mother says: I never thought I’d see you here. The silence. No dreams prepare you for this. We weep. My hand holds dry fingers numb skin that chills, my lips rest on father’s forehead spit can’t wipe the taste clean.

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Olivia after the funeral Outside, my back against the rough brick of my mother’s house. She wants to tell me a story about my father. I stub the cigarette out. I don’t know her. I’m suspicious of this daughter of a family friend, dressed in a pink twin-set. She tells me she’s at a wedding, my father is already old and he asks her to dance. She tells me she’s sixteen and has never danced before. Her hand on his shoulder, she places the other in his hand one, two, three╯.╯.╯. one, two, three╯.╯.╯. one, two, three╯.╯.╯. he counts as he takes her round the dance floor. 51

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Fidgeting with her ring, she finishes: And as he took me round the hall I felt like a princess.

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Hemispheres

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1. circumpolar It’s said a son split his mother in half to form heaven and earth. Her breadth was a sky spanned by genealogies and histories, and continents plimmed with blood. Studded in the reptilian tail, the old Pole Star, Thuban. Under its light, millions of sunsets before today, Babylonian traders moved across the sands from water to water, under the light of oil lamps architects drafted tombs for living pharaohs, and on the tundra, tattooed shamans read the circling futures.

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2. abbé nicholas louis de lacaille draws heaven at the cape of good hope, 1751–1753 Unlike the waters of trade-soaked Africa, above, the unfamiliar southern skies: the sails and rigging, a dark lacework against the twilight. Dinner, then the observations began. Glass to eye, the sound of quill on paper, meditating on the work, his gift to God, he recorded thousands of stars. The South Pole Star he found in a constellation he named Octans. Late at night while sailors dreamed of women’s thighs and rum, he dreamed of the unnamed creatures that dwelled on the ice floes of a frigid land without myth, without language.

Bus stop, Banksmeadow We wait for the twelve fifteen. Mother tells me again while she looks at the passing cars╯– her second pregnancy, she stopped driving in case of an accident. She turns to me: Where am I now? She shrugs. I’m here. Where do I go? Nowhere. My brother spots us, pulls up fast takes us to the cemetery. She wipes the gravestone arranges the flowers. Crows pick through the grass as father, her chauffeur, rests.

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Sea urchins 1. My parents both smile. The Adriatic is chest high on my mother, and my father is holding me in one arm. In his other hand a spiny ball inches across his palm like a hunched cloud.

2. August in Kyoto I sit with my lover in a sushi bar and don’t know if I can swallow the soft green urchin steeped in algae, salt and sand.

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3. Lazarus at the beach

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Antemeridian The tidal darkness begins to recede from the room with a crow call, then a gull’s. A prelude to screeches filled with chipped claws and sand, a weaving flock blown in from the headland. Air presses the body gelidly, holding it in place to the point of paralysis. Shadow deepens the geometry of lines, redrawing angles. This is when dreams splinter into scenes and sound: crabs swarm clumps of seaweed, shark teeth tear gills, the head fills with tinnitus.

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Lazarus at the beach 1. For weeks the fishermen made bets on how long I’d last. They were men enough not to do it in front of my sisters, Martha and Mary. My cousins’ children drew birds on the floor round my bed. On the third night the families left by train for the city. Their crying still paces the lanes and pecks at the garbage. 60

2. Breath is a low growl when the sickness lifts. I blink at the whiteness of the wall. The sheet slips down, fingers move, tongue does not. Thoughts rise like fumes and a cough predicts the desire to tell someone something.

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3. The nurse sees me standing in the corridor. Blood streams down my arm from the IVs I’ve pulled out. Words don’t come. My sisters cry: You’re awake! Naked, moving through their arms and tears, all I think of is the piss I want to take and the search for a sentence. Breath collects on the bathroom mirror, then disappears, the coma’s darkness under my eyes. 61

My sisters lean against the wall outside. They thank Jesus, offer me clothes and water. The nurse asks me to unlock the door.

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4. Martha and Mary give me bread at the kitchen table. I tell them: The sentence is a question. They look down at the plate then at each other. I continue. In fact, the question is a word.

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Outside the fish shop, I stare at the flashing billboard, eat potato scallops. Men whisper about me when they stride past.

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5. I’ve placed scraps in neat rows along the shoreline for the seagulls. I draw lines with spit on the bare side of the cliff. I squat by rock pools, crawl on all fours, run my finger over the sea anemones, tap the brown birth mark on my knee. The children on the pier point at me. 6. The barmaid yawns when I sit down. There’s not always an answer, I tell her. Just a beer? is her response. Breath lifts. I turn to her. It’s the random, the rule of randomness. She finishes with: So, no peanuts today?

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7. I look up to skies covered in sponge-like cloud, as if looking into tropical waters, wondering if I’ve become some kind of spirit. I scale wire fences, walk through deserted warehouses and after inspecting the peeling paint, go back to the shore. I run into the shallows, skim pebbles along the water. One rebounds off the cliff and hits a seagull. It doesn’t move anymore. 63

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The Wet On the weather forecast, the low pressure system stays close to the coast. It spirals white. You have taken to your bed and don’t answer the phone. This is what weeks of rain have done to you. In the living room, the damp smothers firewood and paper. And it continues. Invisibility spins round your house while matches refuse to light.

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Photography of coastlines 1. on the teakwood cabinet the sponges infuse the room with salt. A gecko drops onto the windowsill and slips behind the bed head. There is no light on the ocean and the night tide churns the shore. You sleep. Your muscles soft against the mattress, a film of sweat on your forehead. Your skin against my mouth.

2. kelp stalks slide off the dashboard as the road takes the car round the bend to face the deep blue water, and south, at Coolum, the trees stand like kingfishers. At the back of the car, a plastic bag flies wildly, hitting the glass, the seats, my face. I grab it and push it under a towel on the passenger seat next to the bird’s nest and some feathers.

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3. from where i stand the ti-tree creek scallops the shallow bed, reveals traces of dark sand. Water creeps in ribs around driftwood, winds to a mouth at Marcus Beach. Two falcons circle overhead. A pale child walks towards me and points. I look behind and a long tail slides into the grass.

4. the wooden steps take me down through the she-oaks. I sink to my ankles in fine sand. The sky is too heavy for noon. A flock of seagulls paces the shore. They screech in the wind, scatter, then fly towards low, grey clouds. My hands are warm from the paper bag against my chest. I unwrap the food on a sand hill, and a fledging magpie walks closer. I throw a handful of chips. Above me, the gulls drop like hail.

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5. you point out that shadows are blue under amber street lights. Near the beach, crowds look at menus stuck on café windows, and I see a moth on a glass pane. An instinct rises and wings flutter against my palm. Two skateboarders ride between the parked cars and oncoming headlights. We drift into the neon.

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Finding yourself here There’s still enough day to take in the river and the face that reflects knows what brought you here. You have heard the silences and this in itself has woken you and maybe you know everything â•…â•…â•…â•…â•…â•…â•…â•…â•…â•…â•…â•… and nothing.

You walk beside the mottled river, clasping a pebble smoothed by lines of breaking light, and the sky thunders. This is enough for the moment, enough for now; all this under the light rain.

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The future as an island Clouds sprawl over the backbone of the range, muslin curtains blow over my head, as cicadas drone with the ease of monks. In the scrub, the trees are mute. I have collected leaves in paper envelopes. I pick up a book from the table╯– the pages are rippled dry. Stiff from a downpour of summer rain. A water stain forms part of a coastline on the inside of the back cover. From one perspective a jutting boldness of continent, and from another, a peninsula╯– the future as an island. In between the pages, his letter from the Cape. He says the humidity has changed me. I have merged with the stone lands, become one of the hard people who sleep in dry riverbeds, and break sentiments over boulders. Motives are impossible to decipher between his commas and clauses. I slide the letter back into the book.

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A pebble rolls in my pocket. Objects are infused by histories, confine us to the past. On the path under the eucalypts leaves and bark find a place under my heels. I lean against trunks, peel them like sunburn. I write words in the bedroom air, drop them in the centre of the floor, carve effigies of his moods in bone. I thread line through cicada wings, hang them on pelmets, put bird feathers on windowsills, arrange them seaward. My mind fills with smoke from his Indonesian cigarettes, strands of it float to the ranges. The leaf envelopes are in the bottom of my bag. Spilling tea on my book, the water stretches into the future. Birds pick through crab claws, shells, aged glass. Light reflects and I read it as a sign. The blue gaps between the branches are water. In the arbour, the ibises forage for food, reveal the fleshy underside of wings. Their feathers lean seaward cicadas mute the trees with drone. 70

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Sea grass covers the beach and birds pick through jellyfish, clam shells. Bottle shards refract. On the horizon the tide shifts over islands.

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Cyclone The day is more solitary than night╯–╯ a wideness filled with the vortex of questions. I don’t reach conclusions, only the silence in pauses. The smell of water ignites the dance of ants moving in circles. The thunderhead approaches and a centipede coils into a spiral. The eye is coming.

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Arrival Condominiums tower over the thick smog that smears Bangkok like a grey wash. Around the clock they multiply with a loud thudding. Twenty storeys up, men and women workers sit on ledges, hang by their hands, look straight down. No safety harness; nothing. A free fall down to the street. These buildings will house the lucky ones. The ones who pass through the crowds, then return and greet ‘security’ in the foyer, before riding up to dinner, a rest, and a swim. The day edges its way round corners and through gaps like the revving traffic. Men in sidewalk workshops smile at a tourist. A handkerchief covers her nose and mouth. She gets halfway up the block before she gives up, returning to the footpath. Boldly, a stranger takes her by the arm. He hurries her across, skilfully dodging a motorcycle carrying a man, woman and baby. At night young people race down deserted roads. They live the dare. Lie on their bellies along the backs of their motorbikes. No legs, all hands.

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Variations in travel 1. before my flight you left lilies in my study In full bloom they strutted through the room and seduced the postcards from my wall. The Chinese Empress fell first╯–╯the scent of the Orient filling her mind with jade beads and the gossip of dragons. The tangerine pollen stained her hands. She lay across the dictionary for weeks and found the ‘l’ in love is used twice in luckless. Your apologies haunt the airport lounges and tarmac boardings. But Rome grips me. The god, Janus, looks ahead and behind. Your grand gestures fall short of small kindnesses. In the distant piazza an old woman showers birds with crumbs.

2. summer found me on a night train Â�somewhere between spain and france The couchette was packed with retirees. I couldn’t sleep. There was a man in the compartment. I realised then I believed in the segregation of the sexes and spent the night on a bed of metallic thuds. Before daylight only the elderly had risen and gathered along the corridor, waiting, patient as migrating penguins. I was still dressing and was last off the train. The Parisian police questioned me and searched my shoulder bag for drugs. They held up a dirty towel, underwear, a souvenir from Barcelona. At the station I bought a croissant to clear the bone in my throat.

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3. valley mists uncovered the shoulders of mountains That winter at the Hydro Majestic I worked for the old spinster who kept her Pekingese in a playpen next to her desk. She smelled of cheese. At night you and I talked of aliens and flying saucers. I went to work at the country club where the morning cook tapped his fingers on tables and the manager steadied her day on a continuous glass of scotch. On one breakfast shift I heard the meows of a kitten. I climbed through the kitchen window and found a steel-grey mass peppered with flea eggs. Later I ran into the cook’s area to rescue burning toast. When he saw me all he could say was: Outta me kitchen. I left the country club, pet under my arm. It disappeared after a few days. Maybe with the flying saucers. And the only alien I saw was me in a cold mirror. 4. looking over your shoulder I think of those narrow streets in Kyoto where children led me to temple entrances and shrines. They were unafraid to speak with a stranger. I’d missed Basho’s grave but in the mountain temples I heard the wooden floorboards speak. My fascination with the language kept me walking backwards and forwards. The attendant stiffened then told me to stop. I didn’t have enough words to explain that the timber was talking. Near one rock garden was written: I only learn to be content. You look frightened when I tell you I don’t know anything anymore.

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5. april, and i’m uncontactable at the cabin From the verges of the road, the wallabies thud into the scrub past a tree still decorated with silver Christmas tinsel. The asphalt is smeared with fur and dark pink flesh. A sky is stretched and pasted onto blue. The day meanders through pages and pages of books into a night where grey light fidgets with my thoughts. Nine notes from Gymnopédie No.1 turn over in my head and insomnia writes this poem in the dark. Last summer, facing west before dusk, I waited for the bands of light to slip along the tree bark and fall to the forest floor. They diffused, then gathered, forming a core that rose as gold mist.

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Postmeridian, Frigiliana, Spain I wake to white cotton sheetsâ•… wallâ•… ceiling a rectangle of light framed by curtain. Standing flush against tiles, coolness soaks my soles palms press into a marble table brilliance ignites a square room.

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A metallic night song Knee on my chest, a mute angel paralyses me spits graffiti on my face & blows a forest into my head╯–╯trees ╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╇ exhale & morning mists sink into bromeliads, cores reddened by nightly insect stings.

From soaked ferns ╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╇ drops collect above my lips & form a salty prayer I can’t say properly. I mouth words that come as buzzing.

My cheek against earth, I listen for a message╯– only â•…â•…â•… the hoarse sound of wings.

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An absence of saints I am no longer absolved by ritual salt. – Pablo Neruda

The ripples take me up river where the old sadness lives in the marrow, the inhabitants beyond the shore practise endo-cannibalism and their older relatives shake to the rhythm the ancestors pull from their muscles. Crystallising thoughts then viewing them was something the holy ones mastered but€I am no saint, a plastic-coated rose petal from Lourdes is in my pocket, this given to me by my mother. What is the holy holy? I close my eyes and St Sebastian looks up to heaven the arrows╯–╯flowers sprouting from flesh, St Lucy’s eyeless sockets pout and gazing down to her mutilated chest, St Agatha: kindness, murder and revenge I’ve learnt from the lives of saints. €

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I€call to the old ones round the fire but their backs face me I steal the juice from their cups; beyond light I circle, smear skin with mud animal, taking in€and sizing up€ ╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅╅ the green damp heat.

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In the east the war continues, Croatia, 1995 There’s a photograph of my cousin, a german shepherd and armed soldiers, outside a shed they spent the night in. The next day it was shelled by the Serbs. My aunt hands me a strong coffee, leans against the stove and lights a cigarette. Werner tells me he only had one apple to eat for days. He lost twelve kilos. He points to himself in the photo and a small, leather pouch on a strap across his chest. All the soldiers have one. In it are two bullets. The first, in case he can’t continue and has to be left behind. The second, if he misses.

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Death in summer It’s an obstacle course here in the high season. Tourists have turned the beach into a cricket pitch & a soccer field which I dodge only to come across a jellyfish large as a side of lamb. It has roasted here all afternoon, & on the rocks some guys are sunbathing, gay no doubt I’m not even worth a look. Then death catches up to me holding a ball just a young lad at heart he wants a game & I’m in no mood, we’re acquainted we’re old war buddies, it’s not as if I don’t know his ways by now arriving like the least favourite relative unannounced & uninvited the only bonus being he comes alone. He tells me he’s on holiday. He’s wearing his usual black cloak; he doesn’t like to tan. I try to blow him off but he sticks like chewing gum, I guess death needs a rest from the chore of heaving someone over his shoulder & trudging into the long night.

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He tells me he’s misunderstood & offers me a cigarette. I hesitate because I know smoking kills. Then in the spa he gets deep on me & melting into bubbles he says: I need life to live.

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Sea lover The wave rises, a strip of light slashes the wall horizontally, it curls, the lip offering white beads that form a veil. He takes it, boarding the blue water that foams behind him fast as a dancer’s white petticoats, and the kelp unfurls in dark spongy lungs. He memorises the interfemoral breeze as he rolls â•…â•…â•… in the soft whitewash.

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Good Friday Families bring their bits of suburbia to the caravan park to comfort them, I spend the day in my cabin out of the rain. For my mother, her mother and her mother, this day was serious: no laughter, no work, only the cooking of meatless meals. In a different time and place elders gave a man to the garrotte; pulling tight bulbous eyes tattooed arms still. The pond pressed this limp white flesh into its muddy body and corn leaves rustled as a deer sniffed the air. The smell of barbecues floats over the noise of radios, children and crockery and under this din, the sea. I watch the rise and fall of the flyscreen as the breeze breathes slowly.

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A mild night The radio is company and wood smoke drifts through the window from the distant bush fires. A draught under the back door. A hesitation. Something scrapes against the gutter outside. You look up. It drops onto the roof. You find your thoughts in shoes boxes, albums, and drawers. In the hallway, is someone saying your name? And something you thought was finished is back.

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Marcus Beach A sheet of wave soaks into holes, the tunnels caked with carapaces and claws. I yell your name into the wind, the letters break like a seed head. Undeterred by waving arms, or a salt-soaked towelling cap, the kestrels dive for the fisherman’s bait. Today I have no skin, only shell encasing the soft tissue of body. The body is a place of need. I pick dandelions at the verges, throw them at you.

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A note for the past Forgetting is not made of the present. It lives in the pericarp of a peach spat out behind a clump of trees. Behind is the preposition that belongs to forgetting╯– back there, not here where I stand. Forgetting flings sticks at the horizon, to reach further than before. Fetch is not associated with forgetting, the dog stays after the throw.

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Lines written after lunch 1. i’ve thought of you since the first days of summer Nightly, I watch the fan turn against a white ceiling, each rotation moves the candle flame and the soft wax forms beads on my bedside table. I want to end this day still as a sun-wearied wall. The ocean lies miles away.

2. barefoot I dreamed briefly this morning: somewhere before a glimpse of foliage drizzled with light, and somewhere before touching flight feathers, I stepped out of my sandals on to soft grass near you. The swallows on the wires brush against an afternoon raw with mock orange, geranium leaves, and the strange letters tattooed on the inside of your arm.

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Drive sitting on a hundred white crosses on the roadside I turn off the high beam let the motorcycle pass the black reappears I feel a tug from the ghost hitchhiker in the back seat but the highway’s too strong it pulls me forward pressing down the accelerator past the speed limit freedom is dark my headlights slice this now following the white line these stars don’t exist anymore fresh wind on my face through an archway of trees a fire burns in a paddock

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Sleepless since a car sped by When you’re here, you sweep everyday and always use an ashtray. Now sand covers floorboards and cigarette butts fill a saucer on the table. I fed scraps to a Burmese cat. It ran upstairs to the loft then down, clawed the couch, and purred a while on my lap. 91

Outside, sand drifts across the road. My thongs slap the bitumen, gravel digs into the soles and I throw it at light poles. A jogger approaches and I look away. An animal crawls through the scrub, gnaws on bark. At the end of the path, the beach spreads into the morning light. Do you remember Sydney, summers ago? A honeysuckle fence bordered the peach orchard. I would carefully pick the flowers

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from their stems, cut the bases with my thumb nail, pull the stamens through and let the nectar drip onto my tongue.

Sunshine Beach The sky drags low, grey water slams the rock shelf above the pines a brushstroke of crow two flat whites later and you still stare out I look into an empty cup, you throw yours onto the footpath the rain drops between us.

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Orleigh Park The rods lie along the river bank at Toowong Reach while the fishermen cut bait and wipe the afternoon heat from their faces. Across the river, on Coronation Drive brake lights glow in turn. Wings rise, grey-blue. We are both still, the heron and I look and look again, slip past each other as the traffic moves forward.

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Evening at Byron Bay Our feet sink into the sand on our way to the lighthouse. The tide is out. You’ve spent a year here in meditation and I’m wearing the most basic black. Still. I turn to say something to you, but the wind blows my hair into my mouth. Up ahead a group of people hold paper lanterns. They glow in the fading light. On the bay, a candle burns in a small boat carrying their friend’s ashes east.

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Plantings The clear sky is streaked with birdsong and the mists cross the field slowly╯– it’s morning. On the windowsill, a camellia from your mother’s garden. Time has softened the stamens and bronzed the crimson petals. Slipping under the wire fence at the back, the dog follows as you run to the edge of the scrub, seeds in your pocket. There, the tracks of an animal. You step into the prints and beyond the crisp air of boyhood. The voice of the wind comforts you as you brush the rocks with your hand and take in the lichen’s scent. Walking the days, months, years, your gestures weave into the grasses and waiting shadows.

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Now along this path the creaking of old branches, lizards dart through the drying leaves sunless bellies cool with caution. Your voice I hear in the clearing near the grove where, as a child, you planted so many seedlings. You move among the branches and declare other more ambitious plantings, corridors rooms of trees built across the mountain, and here, it gives you pleasure to stroke the bark of the eldest and say its Latin name.

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Notes ‘The last weeks of the war, Istria, 1945’ Non parlano italiano╯–╯They don’t speak Italian mula del FlaK (Italian dialect)╯–╯girl of the German antiaircraft unit Ich habe Angst╯–╯I am afraid dit dit dit dah dah dah dit dit dit╯–╯morse code for SOS Hai visito la mula del FlaK?╯–╯Have you seen the girl of the German anti-aircraft unit? Non sono coi tedeschi, sono in una casa╯–╯I’m not with the Germans, I’m in a house. Croc╯–╯a place in Istria, Italy. My mother isn’t clear where it was but remembers the name as such. It may even have been code for the location. ‘Sofia visits the clairvoyant, 1946’ madre perla╯–╯mother of pearl ‘Botany Bay II’ foibe╯–╯sinkholes ‘His friend sang fuoco, fuochetto’ fuoco, fuochetto╯–╯fire, little fire

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Acknowledgments I am grateful for the grant received from Arts Queensland in 2004 when some of these poems were written. The line ‘I am no longer absolved by ritual salt’ in the poem ‘An Absence of Saints’ is taken from ‘Brussels’ in Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda, translated by Anthony Kerrigan, edited by Nathaniel Tarn, published by Jonathan Cape. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. Two lines from The Collected Poems 1931–1987 by Czeslaw Miloscz. Copyright © 1988 by Czeslaw Milosz Royalities, Inc. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. The epigraphs for ‘Botany Bay I’, ‘Hunters and collectors’ and ‘Banks’ tattoo’ were taken from the journals of Captain James Cook and Sir Joseph Banks in the National Library of Australia’s South Seas database (http://southseas.nla.gov.au/ index.html). The poems in this collection are forthcoming or have appeared in their current or previous forms in the following publications: Heat, Hecate, Hobo, Holland 1945, Idiom 23, Island, Quadrant, Retort Magazine, Scope, Small Packages 6, SOFTBLOW, Stalking Tongue: Book Three, Stylus Poetry Journal, The Envelope Please 2006 Anthology and Winter Spin (NZ). Others have either been broadcast on PoeticA, ABC Radio or screened on Brisbane CityCats Poetry Project.

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I would also like to thank my mother, Sofia, who is a subject in this collection and who provided the background information for the family poems. Without her knowledge and support these poems would never have existed. Finally, I would like to thank Bronwyn Lea and Felicity Plunkett for their frank and insightful advice.

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