Selected poetry
Laundry
My father has laundry to do on Sunday.
Therefore he can come to Carnegie.
Therefore he can see me.
My father lives three suburbs
five kilometres
five minutes
away from Carnegie.
I see him when he can get away.
I don’t go there because that is their home.
He wouldn’t mind but his wife would.
It’s convenient to kill two birds with one stone.
I am a bird, he is a stone.
Sometimes I could kill my father.
We will go to the laundry and finish coffee in time
for the clothes to finish the wash cycle.
This is called catching up with my father.
He would say you don’t do this—
you just don’t do that—
talk about your dirty laundry in public.
Yet he takes my poetry and plays,
my stories, pretty well.
I apologise after poems, after plays.
But he says, well, why not?
It’s the truth. He can take it—
in the films he sees, the books he reads.
But catching up for coffee
is conversation light and frothy as foam.
If you bring up anything difficult.
Anything he finds depressing. He looks like
you’ve dragged him down, or you’ve
put him through the wringer.
And who wants to have that effect
on their father? Over coffee, he keeps
looking at his watch.
He keeps track of the time, so he’s not late
for the laundry. We finish when he’s finished
and head back for the dryers.
I spend the rest of the day
trying not to cry, trying
to write this poem.
Daddy long legs
It started with one. In the corner behind the TV.
Then there was another. Near the front door. Then there were
two, in my bedroom. They coveted corners, ceilings, or edges
of things. There must be a nest, said my mother, as if she was
an expert. She suggested vacuuming, but you’d have to make sure,
she said, cover the vacuum so they can’t get out. I knew
she could imagine me, taking the hose, heaving the thing out.
Dropping it, screaming; breaking it, as all those legs walked out.
Are they inviting their friends? Is it something about this house?
It never dawns on me to dust. I want to know their mystery.
I leave them there, as proof. Of what, I can’t say. I want to get rid of them.
It’s not as if this house is haunted. Who am I kidding? Of course it is.
You are not here. You never noticed cobwebs anyway, you allowed
them to accumulate. You always kept things clean on the surface.
So I leave the spiders there. It doesn’t matter how harmless they are,
I’m still scared of them. I’m frightened of killing them, I fear they
might call all their friends. Four or five — at a stretch six — I can contain.
But if they keep coming, I don’t know what I’ll do.
I know one thing though: there’s no point calling you.
Milk
We need more milk.
There is no we, only me,
running out of essentials
on a regular basis as if milk
is too thin to think of.
There is a dryness in this,
a bitterness, that begins
a day with television.
I say it’s for stretches
in front of it but we
both know it’s to fill up
your silence.
The TV and I share
an electric knowledge.
Nights where we both know
there’s nothing on yet
we’re still there
for each other.
I run out of bread too
but that’s to be
expected. One loaf is too big
for this narrow-strip kitchen
that’s right here
in the lounge room.
Open-plan living for
this space that feels so closed.
Where are you telling me off for
forgetting the milk? Giving me
that look. Over such petty things.
I always believed I had
better things to think about
Gayelene Carbis is an award-winning writer of poetry, prose and plays. Gayelene’s first book of poetry, Anecdotal Evidence (Five Islands Press) was awarded Finalist – International Book Awards. 2020 awards/shortlistings include: First Prize – My Brother Jack Poetry Award; and Finalist – Bruce Dawe Poetry Prize, and Woorilla Poetry Prize (Commended).