Streetscape

by SUZI MEZEI

The window boasts white hot
constellations that jar wakeful eyes,
brazen glare exposes all
that’s moored to our suburban plot:
the trunks of scribbly gums
etched in secret arboreal script,
the neighbour’s sharp-eared terriers,
listless at fenced borders,
the rusted carcase of a Holden,
ochred with age,
the unsavoury end of a track
where strangers park and sleep rough
inside the bellies of fogged metal beasts.
The street has never learnt their names, no one stops
to chat; they greet the dark alone. Caught
in the dim glow of a torch, a drifter
brushes her teeth, spits bottled water
on scrub and dandelion heads,
climbs back inside to burrow
amongst her worldly goods, a middle-aged bug
nestled under the stretched wing
of Cygnus in the night sky; a swan beckoning her
towards brighter days.