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Currajah

[a Walleah Press blog]

MARTIN R. JOHNSON

Daughters & C.W.

Driving past the rusty red door

of a farmer's truck,

I read

these faded letters

below the shirtsleeve rolled up

an old arm.

 

There's something about

the weather-beaten and

drooping hat

hiding

the driver's face

that lingers in my mind

long after the truck had vanished

from out the car's rear-view

mirror.

 

I wonder about his daughters ...

Grown up now with

husbands and lives of their own,

the itch of hay gone

from their skins, callouses

from a tractor's steering-wheel

disappeared in the sink,

smell of sheep

faded out their clothes, faces

gone soft

from watching tv shows.

Or are they still out there, shooting

glances towards the gate, impatient

for their dad?

 

Night is coming on ...

Like swerving to miss

a kangaroo

caught in the bright glare

of the car's head lights,

I steer clear of the possibilities.

 

A woman's grim countenance

empty of happiness.

The thickness of boredom

worn smooth as apathy

on the surface of a brain

dull to the pleasure that swaggers

through the city streets

beyond the barbed wire of paddocks

that house her life.

 

From where sheep escape

and find solace

in the slaughterer's knife.