Fox Hunt

1.
Summer, 1933.

A deep loch
Bubbles and boils.
Above the waterline, the air
Bends and folds
Like a house of mirrors.

A dinosaur comes up for air.
The River Ness splits open
And a legend forks out over flood plains.

2.
Bass Strait straddles
A port-bound ship.

A flash of brick-red fur.
Spurs frenzy.
The Mersey River bursts apart
And a fledgling Task Force
Takes flight.

Red is the new black –
Fox is the new Thylacine.

The Red Plague sweeps our island.
Apocalypse looms.

All talk of tumours are drowned
In the sound of one hand
Back-slapping:
The Tassie Devil makes way
For the Tassie Hawks.

3.
I saw a fox down at Parliament House,
His slippery fingers foraging
Through the taxpayer’s purse.

Sheriff, won’t you lay a bait or two
For Robin Hood?
His men are far too merry.

Mosquitoes in Mesopotamia

The sun takes one last breath,
Disappears.
The moon sits alone;
A chalky coin
Upon a dusty-blackboard sky.

In the nervous silence of the night
Mosquitoes feed
On blistered skin.

Veins pulse with life;
A river of liquorice ink
Thunders beneath.

Needles drill,
A desert plain is spattered with blood.

Mosquitoes hum their farewell,
Each one
Full as a fat wallet.