by Thomas Simpson

In open air between tall wetland grass
shaking off the smothering wet
of weeks in dense forest, mud and growling feral pigs
make way for sand and the unreachable sound of rolling waves,
somewhere beyond the skeletal stands of ghost gum
and each sandy rise. This river
has changed name again as it slows and thins
and browns, steeping in tea-tree.
Red flowers hanging in thorny scrub lining
Lake Maringup, looking like discarded
cocktail umbrellas. Changing wind fills
the lake’s expanse with low smoke. Black swans silhouetted
and featureless as the ocean’s hiss crackles out of earshot
behind burn offs and falling trees.