by Ross Jackson
I scan the painted horses
racing through the railway underpass
at Richmond
at the first corner I come to, ‘Traditional spanakopita’
chalked on a board outside Hellas Cakes
local seniors already tapping drinks
as I walk by The Vine at ten o’clock
the saltire, an improbable kite being flown in a side street
charcoal chicken perfuming the air
around The five hundred retail republics of Vietnam
long-extinguished local businesses:
Bosisto’s Eucalyptus, Rosella, Bryant and May
old factory names painted on
brick stacks and towers still holding up
somewhere in the unfamiliar maze
I wonder if I might find a stain of spilt blood
between railway line and river
from anything left
of the horror of the Pettingill’s?
‘The Daughters of Divine Zeal’
a name I recall seeing on a steel plate