ADAM STOKELL

            Poetry — 'Coats'

City park syndrome.
Classic. Small grey rain.
E-finches giggle through a speaker
mounted on a lamppost with a camera.

Taking place between asphalt paths,
crayons in the pockets
of my wet black coat. Season
still called autumn.
Goldrush of longhaul settled trees.

Strokes of people left to right
across the paths towards the cbd,
phones conferring rainbows
in drizzle-resistant skins.
I shift into the ark beneath a conifer.

Right to left, a sky-blue coat,
someone spilling gold hair
skirts the asphalt paths.
Past this ark, inside the rain,
waves: gold umber green brown
ground rising blue.

Adam Stokell’s poems have appeared in various journals, most recently in Burrow, Meniscus and Sudo Journal. His first poetry collection, Peopling The Dirt Patch (A Published Event, 2018), formed part of The People’s Library exhibit at the Long Gallery, Salamanca. He lives on the outskirts of Hobart.