three haiku
School of whitebait
My hairy legs
Trapped in their fishnets
First day at school
I cling wrap your sandwiches
Extra tight
Ripped wrapping paper
One more year
Neither recyclable
the changing face
Gaps are appearing on our hillside
like missing teeth.
A Victorian molar,
its enamel peeling,
is removed.
Then the pines,
a crooked row of overgrown incisors,
neatly extracted.
The wind calls through the gaps
lisping slightly,
in search of the elusive fairy.
thank you, fourteen million dollar winner
The television announces the fourteen million win.
The news transports us
into dreams of riches.
We all take a ride on that sideshow.
The kids are beneficent donors,
sealing friendships,
securing the future
of their favourite endangered species.
The younger
surrounding themselves
with lifetime supplies of sugar.
We adults are purchasing
that nine seater
or the prado,
that holiday on the Gold Coast,
our retirement secure.
Later, the sense of injustice
comes tapping gently at our door.
But we send it packing.
Not for us! we shout.
Just imagine
the estranged offspring
and nervous neighbours,
the harassing hawkers,
those competing charities.
We all know someone
who knows someone
who was never the same.
In the morning we have the pleasure
of passing by
that temptress counter,
a smile on our face,
the coins safe in our pocket,
secure in the knowledge
that it won’t happen again
in a hurry, and anyhow
(if we’re lucky)
not to us.
