Gulaga (to draw the people back)
Forty minutes on low
means the warming beer can come swinging
down towards the water
down the road where the gum sings wind-songs
over the beer bottle
every long sad leaf pointing down at you
as if you are the water’s surface
and it is the sea plant dancing under you
as if you might be a force things bend to
Down to the water where a congo line of jellyfish
factory operators take hats and scoop blubber lives
and deposit them
in pre-dug cool wet holes
with small hands
Down where one bream, one toadfish, one whiting
touched land
and after sized, returned to their afternoon
All but one
that gave nine of us
one bite with dinner
as if we were a force things might bend to