Rob Hack

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Souvenir Sundays

Chickens scratch the same dirt
a clock ticks off the hours.
The flush of a passing car
then a silence that turns my head.

I settle back into green vinyl
back to Sunday Times distraction.
Smiling photos from WOMAD
drummers, tall flags flapping
a white guy in loud pants dancing like a spaz.

In another silence, I’m in Bexley North, Sydney
on a kitchen chair, back of the Italian deli I live over
with my rented bed and cardboard box furniture.
It’s another bright blue silent Sunday
white sheets on the line fill like a sail,
sparkle of sun off my transistor which tells me Elvis is dead.
And I, twenty-three, wonder, is this it?
Storeman at Government Print, seven dollars in the bank
a flatmate who sculls beetroot juice and breathes through his mouth.