by IAN REID
What it lacks in structural elegance, this house
makes up for in its elevated posture.
Most of the city and suburbs spread out flatly
but here, leaning with hands on a sill,
the occupants can gaze across their roofline
(all hips, no gables) beyond the river’s breadth
to the Kings Park ridge, dark on the opposite side,
or, on the Swan itself, to the dip and sway
of small white sails reflected in water
like gulls pecking and plucking at their own
image on the surface of the ripple-glass river.
And after sunset, scanning the northeast,
they see the middle-distance huddle of trees
and looming behind like bloated fungus haulm
the city centre’s buildings, sombre, topped
incongruously with a glittering diadem.